Intel Motherboards : SM951 as OS boot device information

Author: parsec
Subject: SM951 as OS boot device information
Posted: 17 Nov 2016 at 11:51am

defcon_1 wrote: Hi all, I've now spent a good few hours researching and trying to get this working on my PC for a while now but whatever I do results in the same thing: The SM951 drive is not bootable even after installing Windows 10. I've followed all of the guides, setting the Launch Storage OpROM Policy to UEFI only. I've checked to see that the motherboard picks up the device in the System Browser, so all is fine there however in the Boot Options the only options I have are: UEFI: Mass Storage Device 1.00 (this is the USB drive I used to install Windows) USB: Generic STORAGE DEVICE 945 The second one is the SM951 NVMe SSD (not sure why it comes up as USB when it's plugged into a PCIe adapter into the PCIe slot) but when I boot with this device all I get is: "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key_" According to this guide: http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1236&PN=1&title=how-to-install-windows-on-a-pcie-ssd I'm supposed to get the option:  "Windows Boot Loader" or "Windows Boot Loader: <SSD name>" But I don't. For the Windows installation, it is on a USB drive formatted in the GPT drive format (I did it this way after following another guide after the Windows Creation tool gave the same result) and I have updated to the 2.90M BIOS from the ASRock website under Beta. Also tried the BIOS update that was posted on this thread... My motherboard is the z77 Extreme4. Please help! Thanks

First of all, do you know if you SM951 is the NMVe version, or the AHCI version. There are two versions.

The NVMe version's general model name is MZVPVxxx0. NVMe model is MZ V...

The AHCI version's general model name is MZ-HPVxxx0. AHCI model is MZ H...

This really does not make much of a difference, but is worth knowing.

Next, what M.2 to PCIe adapter are you using? I assume you are using the PCIE2 or PCIE3 slot, since those are the only ones that would work.

You said the SM951 is recognized in System Browser. What does it say the device it recognizes is?

I've installed Windows 10 on an Intel 750 NVMe SSD on my Z77 Extreme4 board, and it worked fine. But I always had a problem with the Beta P2.90M UEFI version, once Win 10 was installed. I cannot get into the UEFI without doing a UEFI/BIOS clear. I assume a side affect of even getting NVMe support on a Z77 board, which is amazing period.

Given your description, your USB Win 10 installation media was not done correctly. I have no idea why your installation media, "... is on a USB drive formatted in the GPT drive format". I never had that in my guide. I know, you got that from another guide.

Users get the GPT thing mixed up all the time, so I assume that is what happened here. The Windows Creation Tool does not know what drive you are installing on, and I never let it create the USB flash drive. Sorry to say, but that was the mistake you made.

We have some cleanup of the USB flash drive to do. Also, if your flash drive is larger than 16GB, they tend to not work correctly. An 8GB flash drive is big enough, 16GB is what I happen to use.

Quick  guide for you, since you seem to know most of what is required. Only change the following in you installation procedure:

Do you have a download Win 10 ISO file somewhere? Or did you just use the Create USB flash drive with the Windows tool when the download was complete, which you said you did. If you don't have the ISO file by itself, you get to download it again, but do NOT use the Windows tool to create the USB flash drive Win 10 installer. Skip that part at the end of the Win 10 ISO download procedure, and you'll have the ISO file in whatever your browser's download folder is.

Once you have a Win 10 ISO file, we can fix your USB flash drive and start over. Put the USB flash drive in a USB 2.0 port on whatever PC you can use, and start a Windows Command Prompt (Admin).

When you see the C:\Windows\system32>  prompt, type in diskpart and press Enter.

Type in list disk and press Enter.

Find the USB flash drive in the list of drives, and find its Disk number. Let's say it is Disk 3.

Type in the following commands one at a time, and press Enter after each one"

select disk 3  (USB flash drive)

detail disk (this is to verify that you selected the correct disk before using "clean" below. Clean formats the drive without checking if it is safe to do so, so be VERY sure it is the USB flash drive!!)

clean

create partition primary

format fs=fat32 quick

active

assign

list volume

exit

You can close the Command Prompt window. The USB flash drive is now in the correct format to accept the Win 10 ISO. Nothing more needs to be done to it, except you could give it a name if you open its Properties.

With that USB flash drive in the PC with the Win 10 ISO file, go to the ISO file.

Left click on the ISO and in the list displayed select Mount.

You'll then see the actual list of files and folders in the ISO file, boot, efi, sources,... setup.

Right click and select all the folders and files so they are all highlighted, similar to a drag and drop selection.

Left click in the highlighted area and find Send To, the USB flash drive should be in the list. Select it and it will take several minutes to write the ~3.7GB to the USB flash drive. When that is done, the USB flash drive with Win 10 is ready to use.

You'll probably find the "Mounted" ISO file as a device with a drive letter in Windows Explorer. Left click on it and select Unmount to get rid of that.

Now put the USB flash drive in a USB 2.0 port on the Z77 Extreme4 board, that I hope ONLY has the SM951 in it, NO OTHER drives, besides the flash drive.

Start that PC, go into the UEFI and select the, "UEFI: <USB flash drive name> to boot from, and Save and Exit to start the installation.

Do NOT select an Express Installation, select a Custom Installation.

The SM951 should be recognized by the Win 10 installer. Delete ANY and ALL partitions on the SM951, it MUST be completely unformatted.

Then click on the New button to format the SM951. You'll see a message about creating partitions, just click OK to continue. You should get five partitions on the SM951, that is correct.

Finally, click Next to actually start the installation. Should go pretty fast.

When the PC restarts, do NOT go into the UEFI and do NOT remove the USB flash drive until Windows is finished installing and you are looking at the Win 10 desktop. Done.

If you have more problems, let us know, but I can't spoon feed this any more than that.