[SOLVED] Problems Installing Windows 10 on NVMe M.2 SSD

[Fluffythecat]

I'm trying to install Windows 10 Home onto a Samsung 970 EVO M.2 1 TB drive.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z270X-DESIGNARE with the latest BIOS (F5d)
CPU: Intel Core i5-7600K
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000
Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB Gaming iCX
Network Adapter: Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I PCIe x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Adapter

I used the latest Windows Media Creation Tool to create a boot drive on a SDCZ36-008G-A11 SanDisk 8GB Cruzer USB 2.0 Flash Drive 8GB USB External.

The Samsung 970 is the only drive plugged in other than the USB boot drive.

I've tried installing Windows 10 Home 64 bit over a dozen times with both RAM sticks plugged in, with only one, and only the other, at the default 2133 clock speed instead of the advertised 3000 clock speed. I've tried changing various BIOS settings including optimized defaults, UEFI enabled/disabled, and so on. I don't really understand any of these BIOS settings; I've turned them on/off as per recommendations from people having similar issues.

The 970 is detected most of the time by my BIOS and the Windows installation. Some of my installs have failed halfway through, 75% of the way through. A few other times the install completed and then I got blue screen errors upon restart saying the drive needs to be repaired. I've tried repairing it from the USB boot drive and it always says that Windows cannot repair it.

I'm at my absolute wit's end.

Update: I've successfully installed Windows on my old Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" and the 970 does not show up in the OS, even after installing the latest driver from Samsung's website. The 970 does show up in BIOS however.

 

[bmockeg]

I'm trying to install Windows 10 Home onto a Samsung 970 EVO M.2 1 TB drive.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z270X-DESIGNARE with the latest BIOS (F5d)
CPU: Intel Core i5-7600K
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000
Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB Gaming iCX
Network Adapter: Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I PCIe x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Adapter

I used the latest Windows Media Creation Tool to create a boot drive on a SDCZ36-008G-A11 SanDisk 8GB Cruzer USB 2.0 Flash Drive 8GB USB External.

The Samsung 970 is the only drive plugged in other than the USB boot drive.

I've tried installing Windows 10 Home 64 bit over a dozen times with both RAM sticks plugged in, with only one, and only the other, various BIOS settings including optimized defaults, UEFI enabled/disabled, and so on. I don't really understand any of these BIOS settings, I've turned them on/off as per recommendations from people having similar issues.

The 970 is detected most of the time by my BIOS and the Windows installation. Some of my installs have failed halfway through, 75% of the way through. A few other times the install completed and then I got blue screen errors upon restart saying the drive needs to be repaired. I've tried repairing it from the USB boot drive and it always says that Windows cannot repair it.

I'm at my absolute wit's end.

Update: I've successfully installed Windows on my old Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" and the 970 does not show up in the OS, even after installing the latest driver from Samsung's website. The 970 does show up in BIOS however.

Might be that the image is messed up some how. I would try reformatting the USB and run the media creation tool again and go from there.

 

[Fluffythecat]

Might be that the image is messed up some how. I would try reformatting the USB and run the media creation tool again and go from there.

I have tried that, and I have tried using different flash drives as well, to no avail. And if there was something wrong with the image, then I wouldn't have been able to successfully install Windows onto my other drive using the same image.

 

[onespeedbiker]

Check the boot page of your BIOS and make sure UEFI is turned on for your ssd.

This looked like a good video that covers the high points.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y7st_BTyfI