SATA SSD disappears when m.2 installed

[botopz]

Hello wizards, I have an MSI Z170a Gaming 7 board updated to the latest BIOS. I've had my OS installed on a 500GB Samsung 850 Pro (SATA 3 Version) for a while, and since it's filling up fast, I recently purchased a Sandisk 400 1TB m.2 SSD. I used a hard drive dock with a m.2 to SATA adapter to clone the Samsung SSD to the Sandisk. The problem is, when I plug the m.2 SSD into the board, the BIOS (or OS) doesn't see the SATA SSD any longer. If I take the m.2 out, the SATA SSD shows up again. I'm not sure if there is some sort of issue with both drives having the same Windows 10 Pro key attached to them? I'd like to keep the SATA SSD the way it is for now, but I guess if it needs to be formatted to work I can do that. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[Samer1970]

try another sata port , That M2 maybe is shared with the same sata you are using.

 

[USAFRet]

If you're using an m.2 SATA drive, it turns off 2 of your regular SATA ports.

From the specs:https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/Z170A-GAMING-M7.html#hero-specification

* M.2, SATA and SATAe ports maximum support 1x M.2_PCIe + 6x SATAs or 1x M.2_SATA + 1x M.2_PCIe + 4x SATAs.

 

[joex444]

This is because your M.2 drive is a SATA protocol drive rather than NVMe. Using it disables two of your SATA ports and you happen to have found one of the two that it disabled. Moving your SATA SSD over one column should fix it.

 

[botopz]

If you're using an m.2 SATA drive, it turns off 2 of your regular SATA ports.

From the specs:https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/Z170A-GAMING-M7.html#hero-specification

* M.2, SATA and SATAe ports maximum support 1x M.2_PCIe + 6x SATAs or 1x M.2_SATA + 1x M.2_PCIe + 4x SATAs.

Thanks a ton. I had pulled the chart up from the manual (shown below) and it looked like SATA ports 1 and 2 should have worked. Moved to port 4 and viola! Thanks much!

http://imgur.com/irAW9nW

 

[USAFRet]

This is the specific reason I did not go to an M.2 drive for my latest SSD upgrade.

A 500GB 850 EVO SATA vs a 500GB M.2 SATA.
Zero performance increase, fewer SATA ports, more money.