[SOLVED] Wont boot into windows after installing m.2 ssd

[M4RS]

I've got a gigabyte x299 ud4 pro motherboard. I have 6 SATA SSD's in RAID 0 as my current boot drive (i know it's flippin stupid that's why i bought the m.2). When I installed my new m.2 it would only boot to bios and only 2 of the 6 drives showed up. I took it out and it works fine again. I was really hoping to just put the m.2 in, clone my boot drive (raid array) over to it, boot to the m.2 and then wipe and reconfigure the raid array to something more reasonable. I'm beginning to worry that its not gonna be that easy. I mean worst case scenario I bite the bullet and buy an external drive and image the current boot drive to it, install yada yada yada. But it still doesn't really solve my problem. Is my m.2 using the SATA bandwidth or something? I don't see why it shouldn't work.

 

[USAFRet]

Use of an M.2 drive almost certainly disables one or more SATA ports.
Hence, no boot for you.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X299-UD4-Pro-rev-10/sp#sp
"Refer to "1-9 Internal Connectors," for the installation notices for the M.2 and SATA connectors. "

 

[Ralston18]

Yes: You must get away from RAID.

However that must be done very carefully. And you must take a close look at the Motherboard's User Guide to determine what SATA configurations are supported.

Moving thread from Systems to Storage. You need targeted assistance.

 

[alceryes]

I've got a gigabyte x299 ud4 pro motherboard. I have 6 SATA SSD's in RAID 0 as my current boot drive (i know it's flippin stupid that's why i bought the m.2).

Wow! Just, wow! I actually know someone with this kind of a set up. (is that you Mr. Burns??) 😆

First things first - backup all critical data. This operation isn't risk free. RAID implementations vary motherboard to motherboard (and sometimes BIOS version to BIOS version).
So, you need to get the data that's on that RAID monster somewhere else and I'm not sure you'll be able to do it with free software. I would use an imaging software to create an image of your current 'boot drive' onto an extermal USB drive. Pull all your drives then put in the M.2 and restore the image to it. You'll probably have to boot from a Windows install USB to fix the boot record. If this works it would be the easiest route.

 

[USAFRet]

Macrium Reflect would do the imaging to an external, and then recovery to the M.2.

The problematic question is...Does the OS carry the RAID information? If so, that would carry over into the recovery to the M.2, and cause issues.


How much space is consumed on the 6x RAID array?
What size is the M.2?

 

[alceryes]

The problematic question is...Does the OS carry the RAID information? If so, that would carry over into the recovery to the M.2, and cause issues.

Yup. I'm hoping that a boot record fix would correct that but there may be lingering issues.

 

[M4RS]

So thanks for all these replies, sorry I didn't get back sooner i was waiting on my external hard drive. I used the windows 7 create a backup image in control panel to backup my entire c drive. Ive created a recovery drive so I can boot recovery and select to restore from the image I have on the external drive. So that is my plan. The RAID was set up using the mobo bios so I dont think it will cause issues when I restore the image, for all intents and purposes windows treats my RAID array like a single drive. I'm thinking WCS is when I restore the image the m.2 wont boot, I unplug it and hopefully my raid array will be fine. Ill keep you guys updated