Question Samsung 990 Pro not available as boot drive option

[BadBoyGreek]

Hello,

Hoping someone might have some insight on an issue I'm having with a newly purchased Samsung 990 Pro 2TB drive. My motherboard, an Asus ROG B550-F Gaming, won't properly detect the drive while CSM is disabled and I can't install Windows to it. It also doesn't show as a bootable drive option in my boot priority list.

If I enable CSM, it does show up as a boot drive, and the Windows 11 install starts, but when I select the version of the OS, it says Windows 11 can't be installed on my system.

When I switch back to my previous boot drive, a Samsung 980 Pro 1TB, the system boots fine. But if I then try to add the 990 Pro drive to the secondary M2 slot, the system fails to boot. Once I remove the 990 Pro, normal system operation resumes.

I've read a lot of comments across many sites from people saying they've had nothing but issues with the 990 Pro drive, and I'm at my wits end with it. My system simply refuses to work with the 990 Pro installed and I'm not sure what else to do. I have the latest version of BIOS for my motherboard, version 3002.

If anyone else has encountered this and has any advice, I'm all ears. Thanks in advance

 

[dwd999]

Hello,

Hoping someone might have some insight on an issue I'm having with a newly purchased Samsung 990 Pro 2TB drive. My motherboard, an Asus ROG B550-F Gaming, won't properly detect the drive while CSM is disabled and I can't install Windows to it. It also doesn't show as a bootable drive option in my boot priority list.

If I enable CSM, it does show up as a boot drive, and the Windows 11 install starts, but when I select the version of the OS, it says Windows 11 can't be installed on my system.

When I switch back to my previous boot drive, a Samsung 980 Pro 1TB, the system boots fine. But if I then try to add the 990 Pro drive to the secondary M2 slot, the system fails to boot. Once I remove the 990 Pro, normal system operation resumes.

I've read a lot of comments across many sites from people saying they've had nothing but issues with the 990 Pro drive, and I'm at my wits end with it. My system simply refuses to work with the 990 Pro installed and I'm not sure what else to do. I have the latest version of BIOS for my motherboard, version 3002.

If anyone else has encountered this and has any advice, I'm all ears. Thanks in advance

A drive will not be listed as a boot drive option until you have successfully installed windows on it. Also note that the windows installer prefers that you have only 1 drive installed at installation time; other drives can be added after installation is complete. You need to examine the 990 drive and check the partition status. The windows installer works easiest when the drive has a GPT partition table and all of the space is Unallocated. If you want to do this from within windows you can use the Disk Management app where you right-click on the left side of the entry for the drive (e.g. over where it says Disk 1) and if it says Convert to GPT then you would select that. Or if you want you can open a command prompt window and use the Diskpart app List Disk command to check if the drive is marked GPT.

Personally I prefer to do this outside of windows since I have a low opinion of its disk management capabilities. You can use a program like Gparted or something similar to examine the disk and make any necessary changes.

 

[BadBoyGreek]

A drive will not be listed as a boot drive option until you have successfully installed windows on it. Also note that the windows installer prefers that you have only 1 drive installed at installation time; other drives can be added after installation is complete. You need to examine the 990 drive and check the partition status. The windows installer works easiest when the drive has a GPT partition table and all of the space is Unallocated. If you want to do this from within windows you can use the Disk Management app where you right-click on the left side of the entry for the drive (e.g. over where it says Disk 1) and if it says Convert to GPT then you would select that. Or if you want you can open a command prompt window and use the Diskpart app List Disk command to check if the drive is marked GPT.

Personally I prefer to do this outside of windows since I have a low opinion of its disk management capabilities. You can use a program like Gparted or something similar to examine the disk and make any necessary changes.

Thanks, I might have to look for some third party app to check that out. My system refuses to boot whether I have the 990 Pro by itself or with the 980 Pro, so I can't really check the partition info via Windows. Though as it was a brand new drive I bought at retail and was still sealed, I very much doubt there would be any partition data on it.

My other option is to get a M.2 to USB adapter and try connecting it that way to my PC and see if I can do some more digging that way. Just as is currently, the 990 Pro is useless to me

 

[BadBoyGreek]

A drive will not be listed as a boot drive option until you have successfully installed windows on it. Also note that the windows installer prefers that you have only 1 drive installed at installation time; other drives can be added after installation is complete. You need to examine the 990 drive and check the partition status. The windows installer works easiest when the drive has a GPT partition table and all of the space is Unallocated. If you want to do this from within windows you can use the Disk Management app where you right-click on the left side of the entry for the drive (e.g. over where it says Disk 1) and if it says Convert to GPT then you would select that. Or if you want you can open a command prompt window and use the Diskpart app List Disk command to check if the drive is marked GPT.

Personally I prefer to do this outside of windows since I have a low opinion of its disk management capabilities. You can use a program like Gparted or something similar to examine the disk and make any necessary changes.

So, funny story… I tried 3 different USB sticks that all gave me the same issue trying to install Win11. Then I managed to test them on 2 laptops I have, they all worked fine. Installed the 990 Pro into the laptops 1 at a time, installed Win11 no problem.

Threw the 990 back into my PC, tried booting the OS from one of the laptop installs, it boots fine. Restart, try clean installing the OS from USB, issue occurs again. Changed to an external DVD-Rom and tried installing the OS from disc, still no go. Tried different revisions of the BIOS, nada.

You know what ended up working? Ran Win11 media creation tool on an external M2 SSD, boot off it into the OS installer… and success.

FML this was the biggest PITA ever.

 

[SkyNetRising]

You know what ended up working? Ran Win11 media creation tool on an external M2 SSD, boot off it into the OS installer… and success.

Windows 11 install requires fTPM to be enabled and secure boot enabled.
If you don't have that, then installation will refuse.

Note - second M.2 slot disables sata ports SATA5,6.
If you have any drives connected there and active bootloader is on one of them, then using second M.2 slot makes your system unbootable.

For during windows install you want only single drive connected. Remove all other M.2, sata drives.

 

[popatim]

Secure boot on
CSM off
fTPM on (in the advanced section of your bios)
format drive at GTP if you've pre- formatted it as MBR.

 

[BadBoyGreek]

Windows 11 install requires fTPM to be enabled and secure boot enabled.
If you don't have that, then installation will refuse.

Note - second M.2 slot disables sata ports SATA5,6.
If you have any drives connected there and active bootloader is on one of them, then using second M.2 slot makes your system unbootable.

For during windows install you want only single drive connected. Remove all other M.2, sata drives.

Yeah, I had all the correct options enabled in BIOS, just for whatever reason it refused to play nice when I was trying to install Win11 from USB stick or DVD to the 990 Pro. Any other M2 drive I tested on, USB stick worked just fine. When I booted Win11 installation off an external M2 drive connected via USB-C, it worked like a charm.

Don’t know what the secret sauce was with the external M2 method, but I’ll take the win all the same!