Samsung SM961 ssd not recognised

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Yoan83

Commendable
Dec 29, 2016
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Hello, I just tried to plug this ssd https://www.scan.co.uk/products/256gb-scanfx-sm961-polaris-m2-nvme-mlc-v-nand-ssd-pcie-30-x4-read-3100-mb-sec-write-1400-mb-sec-330k using this adapter: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/akasa-ak-pccm2p-01-m2-pcie-ssd-to-pcie-x4-slot-adapter-card-supports-2230-2242-2260-2280-22110-plus-

The ssd doesn't appear anywhere, no windows, no bios, nothing.
Only thing I got was windows trying to find the drivers for a new PCI device but couldn't.

The LED is on on the adapter though.

I'm kind of a noob, what should I try now? Thanks
 
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I will be keeping an eye on this - I have exactly a similar problem. I have installed a Samsung SM961 PCIE in my Dell 7559 laptop but it isn't showing in BIOS or Disk Manager or Device Manager. Any help that anyone can give would be appreciated.
 
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I don't have that drive, but I believe your answer would depend on the OS you are using and your motherboard/CPU. Only the newest motherboards support PCI-E drives natively and can boot from them. Older motherboards can still use them, but you will have to install the appropriate drivers in windows first before the drive will be recognized. Try looking on the Samsung website for drivers for the SM961.
 
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Hi Calculagator - I'm using Windows 10 which I read had the requisite NVMe drivers. When I try and install either the Samsung NVMe driver or Samsung Magician, it can't see the drive so won't install! Very frustrating!
 
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I just had a similar issue and it might be that you need to see if your motherboard has a BIOS update to support NVME PCI Express drives. As far as I can tell, some older motherboards don't have BIOS support for those drives and in that case I imagine they won't show up in Windows even if you're using Windows 10 which supports them at a driver level.
 
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My motherboard is the MSI Z77A-G45. It looks like I have the latest Bios (Live update says ver 2.0)
I'm running on Windows 7 64bit SP1

And I can't seem to find the samsung drivers for the SM961 on their website :/
I'm stuck.
 
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As I mentioned, it's likely a BIOS issue. That motherboard is old enough that they probably never added NVME support. You are unlikley to get that SM961 to work with your current system.

 
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As I expected, Samsung magician could'nt detect anything.

I just realised though that Live update did not update my bios, as the latest version is actually 2.C and not 2.0 There is quiete a lot of update in between as well. Problem is i don't have a USB stick with me so I'll have to wait tommorow to update my Bios.
 
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The BIOS only needs to support NVMe if you want to boot from the drive. NVMe support isn't necessary for windows to recognize the drive.
Windows 7 does have issues with NVMe drivers. Microsoft may have one that work. The Samsung one you want is the NVMe driver for the 960/950. I know that there used to be some compatibility issues between the windows and samsung drivers. I don't know if those have been resolved.
Magician won't recognize anything until you have the right driver installed.
 
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That's a good point. I shouldn't have assumed he wanted to boot to the drive.



 
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Okay I made progress. I installed pretty much every nvme drivers I could find for windows 7, and suddenly Disk management detected the ssd!
I partitioned it, it now appear in My computer!

Next bit is probably impossible, reading your comment, but I'll try anyway. I would like to boot on it. Okay the Bios doesn't recognise the ssd yet, and I still can't update my Bios (still first version from years ago) but Samsung Magician also doesn't recognise it. Is it normal? anyway to enforce the bios with an update to get the nvme driver in there?
 
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I don't see anything on the MSI support site about a bios update that supports NVMe. It looks like the last bios for the board was released in 2013. Without that motherboard support, you won't be able to boot to the drive.

It might be possible to use some sort of boot loader on an SATA drive that will then load windows from your SSD. This post claims to have accomplished that using a bootloader for hackintoshes: http://mrlithium.blogspot.com/2015/12/how-to-boot-nvme-ssd-from-legacy-bios.html
 
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If Magician doesnt say AHCI mode is activated, is AHCI enabled in the BIOS?

It may say thats it isn't activated if the sata driver you installed isnt supported.

I updated the sata drivers on this to a later version. But it said it wasnt activated.

I had to go back to a previous version before it said AHCI is activated

It'll depend on whether there's a BIOS update saying it supports NVME

If it doesnt, then you cant / wont be able to boot from it

The NVME would still have to appear in the BIOS to select it to boot from



 
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Magician says AHCI is activated, although it says that for my hdd, since my ssd doesn't appear.

As you say, it doesn't seem that the Bios has an update to support nvme. well for now I won't boot on it but just use it to install my games. Still something until i decide to buy a new mobo.
 
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NVMe is a replacement for AHCI. I don't think AHCI mode will make any difference for an NVMe SSD. NVMe was created to eliminate many of the inefficiencies of AHCI for SSDs.
Magician checks for AHCI for SATA drives like the 850. I don't even know if Magician supports the new NVMe drives yet. Also, now that I think of it, Magician hasn't usually supported the OEM versions of Samsung's drives like the SM961.
 
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