Optane Drive Not Detected in Bios

[braxus]

I just swapped a bunch of new parts into the computer for upgrades. My motherboard and CPU were part of that upgrade. Funny thing is Windows 10 still works, even if it is now not activated because of the change. I currently have an Optane 900P PCI-E SSD drive installed in the second PCIE slot from the top. Top slot is for the video card. I am using a Gigabyte x299 Gaming 7 board. All the PCI-E slots are being used with other cards for this and that. I also have a 520 Intel SSD, a M.2 Samsung 960 drive plugged into the middle M.2 slot, and two regular SATA hard drives. When loading the bios up, the UEFI selection is made for the drives. But the bios is not detecting my Optane drive at all. In Windows 10 it doesn't detect the drive to load the drivers either. Its like the drive is not there. Yet it is fully seated in the PCIE slot. Could there be a conflict with the second PCI-E slot the Optane is plugged into and the SATA ports? Or maybe a conflict with the M.2 slot? Or maybe because there is a mix of legacy devices in this computer mixed with new tech? I just cant see why the bios isn't detecting this drive. The computer store claimed it was read while he had it in his hands, but it surely wasnt working when I got it home. I wonder if maybe the drive is dead and needs to be replaced with the store warranty?

 

[panathas]

A lot of modern motherboards have shared resources which means that if you want to use all lanes of a specific PCIe slot then another onboard device will get disabled. Also you have an X299 board and the CPU plays a big role in how many CPU PCIe lanes the motherboard has at its disposal. So depending on what CPU you have, the motherboard may enable/disable a PCIe slot. On top of that it seems almost impossible now days to use all PCIe slots on a motherboard without issues.

You should try to read your motherboard's manual in order to find out all the limitations Gigabyte has put in place depending on your CPU model and also learn which PICe lanes are getting shared. Also update your motherboard's UEFI/BIOS since optane drives may not be supported on older UEFI versions. Finally you should try to test the optane drive in another PCIe slot in order to find out if it is working and whether it is defective or not. Good luck.

 

[braxus]

Also you have an X299 board and the CPU plays a big role in how many CPU PCIe lanes the motherboard has at its disposal. So depending on what CPU you have,

I guess I should have mentioned, but I have the 7800X cpu. 6 core i7 chip. And the motherboard has already had the newest f9 bios installed for the x299 Gaming 7.

 

[Calvin7]

You also don't mention which drive Windows 10 is installed on now.

The NVMe drive is usually used as a boot drive. The Samsung 960 is also an NVMe drive.

NVME SSDs do not appear within the BIOS until Windows creates the system partition with the EFI Boot Sector. Your M.2 SSD contains UEFI driver information within the firmware. By disabling the CSM module Windows will read and utilize the M.2-specific UEFI driver when installing Windows 10.

 

[braxus]

Well I decided to try the drive in a different slot. I removed the card below it and moved the Optane down a slot. That did the trick. I now have the slot above empty. It reads the drive now no issues. Thanks for the tip.

 

[braxus]

I now have another issue to deal with. My motherboard won't detect the drive for boot option. And when I try to install Windows 10, it says it can't detect a partition, even though the drive is formatted. It won't allow me to install Windows on the Optane drive as it is. I did select GPT as an option before formatting. What am I missing? Do I need to load a driver for the Optane on the page where it selects the drive to install on?

 

[panathas]

I think that installing windows on an optane drive is similar to installing on any other M.2 NVME SSD. However I don't know if the procedure has somewhat changed. Usually when I'm trying to install windows on another M.2 drive I'm removing the current OS drive from the system because it can interfere with the windows installation procedure. So if you have another OS drive in your system, remove it and then try to reinstall windows.

I haven't yet dealt with an optane drive, so my experience with them is currently limited but here I found a link about installing windows on optane drives which might help you =>https://communities.intel.com/thread/120416. Good luck.

 

[braxus]

I resolved the last two issues with the drive setup. I deleted all partitions on the Optane and let the Windows 10 installer put the partitions on the drive. Then it would allow loading the Windows 10 install on it. After I did all that, it automatically sent info to the motherboard to have it boot directly from the Optane drive. I didn't have to set anything for it to change to that. And its all working wonderfully now. No issues. And there were a few times I turned on the computer and it booted to the Windows 10 logon screen in 2 seconds. So yes Optane is fast.

 

[abcizdaman]

Maybe download/run SetupRST.exe at https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...YZlcimqKEnRFOeT_XjR9oYbEXQqnat_txoZNLaXjvq5rc and use the Intel® Optane™ Memory and Storage Management application to locate it. Not sure. Good luck!

 

[USAFRet]

Maybe download/run SetupRST.exe at https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...YZlcimqKEnRFOeT_XjR9oYbEXQqnat_txoZNLaXjvq5rc and use the Intel® Optane™ Memory and Storage Management application to locate it. Not sure. Good luck!

2 years later....

Please don't dredge up old threads.