[SOLVED] Windows will not boot from M.2 NVMe SSD on PCIe socket

[Akil24]

Hello everyone!
I had a bunch of desktop PCs but ran out of 2,5" SSDs for upgrading them. Then again I also had several 256MB M.2 NVMe SSDs so I got some of these: PCIe Adapter for M.2
I startet testing with a rather old PC, its mainboard is a Gigabyte GA-H61M-S2PV, BIOS is from 2015.
First I booted Windows 10 from HDD, had to install some RAID drivers to make the SSD work. After that it worked like a charm.
Then I disconnected the HDD and installed Windows 10 from flash drive on the SSD without any problem.
But after the first reboot, to finish Windows setup, it just wont boot from the M.2 SSD .. no boot media found (when I unplug the flash drive, otherwhise it will just boot from that).
In BIOS the SSD doesn't show (I guess that's because the M.2 socket is not onboard) so I cannot select it to boot from.
Secure boot is off, as wll as quick boot.

So here are my Questions:
Is it even possible to boot from a SSD thats connected via PCIe socket or is it the board that's too old for this?
If it's possible .. how?

Thank you for your time
Akil

 

[kanewolf]

Hello everyone!
I had a bunch of desktop PCs but ran out of 2,5" SSDs for upgrading them. Then again I also had several 256MB M.2 NVMe SSDs so I got some of these: PCIe Adapter for M.2
I startet testing with a rather old PC, its mainboard is a Gigabyte GA-H61M-S2PV, BIOS is from 2015.
First I booted Windows 10 from HDD, had to install some RAID drivers to make the SSD work. After that it worked like a charm.
Then I disconnected the HDD and installed Windows 10 from flash drive on the SSD without any problem.
But after the first reboot, to finish Windows setup, it just wont boot from the M.2 SSD .. no boot media found (when I unplug the flash drive, otherwhise it will just boot from that).
In BIOS the SSD doesn't show (I guess that's because the M.2 socket is not onboard) so I cannot select it to boot from.
Secure boot is off, as wll as quick boot.

So here are my Questions:
Is it even possible to boot from a SSD thats connected via PCIe socket or is it the board that's too old for this?
If it's possible .. how?

Thank you for your time
Akil

The problem is your motherboard is too old. NVMe support really started in the 9x generation of motherboards, not the 6x.

 

[Lutfij]

Usually adapters like that have a list of supported motherboards. If memory serves me right the ones shown on Silverstone's page, all show to have no support for platforms prior to Ryzen 1(and the processor from Intel's end during the same time frame/period), correction there's some support prior to the Ryzen's on this one. So the answer is, it might work, it might not...when you're dealing with these generic adapters.

you're better off working with a 2.5" SSD as opposed to an M.2 solution, regardless of an adapter.

 

[kerberos_20]

if bios doesnt see it, then you cant boot from it
you will need to modify your bios to add nvme module

you need different drive to boot from, windows has nvme drivers, so you can use it as data storage

 

[Akil24]

Thank you everyone .. hat saves me a lot of time testing on other PCs ... not even one of them would be compatible with those adapters i guess XD