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Samsung 950 Pro M.2 not recognised Z170 Extreme7+
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TechWiz View Drop Down
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    Posted: 04 Nov 2015 at 3:16pm
I've just purchased the Asrock Z170 Extreme7+ and 2x 512gb Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NvME drives.

I've updated the BIOS to v2.00

I've installed both M.2 drives in slot 1 and 2 and the bios doesn't recognise either are plugged in under Advanced/Storage Configuration as M2_1 and M2_2

I check under TOOL and System Browser and they appear to be populating M2_1 and M2_2 slots.

Once I set SATA Mode Selection to RAID and Launch Storage OpRom Policy to UEFI Only I reboot and I still can't see them in Advanced/Storage Configuration as M2_1 and M2_2

I will also say that no other SATA devices are plugged in at this stage and only the ASUS GTX980 STRIX card is in the PCIE2 slot.

I go into Advanced/Intel Rapid Storage and I can setup a RAID0 array and both drives appear there. It says the Raid is Status NORMAL and Bootable YES.

So then I try using a bootable USB with Windows 10 PRO to install onto the RAID0 array and the array doesn't show in the Windows Setup list of where to install the operating system.

I check under TOOL and System Browser with the M.2 drives still in an ARRAY and they don't appear anymore.

I DELETE the array and the M.2 devices appear in the Advanced/Intel Rapid Storage section under Non-RAID Physical Disks as PCIe 1.0 and PCIe 2.0. Clicking on either shows the 1.0 and 2.0 is the PORT the Status is Non-RAID. Controller Type is NVMe and Controller Interface is PCIe.

Before I reboot I go back to Advanced/Storage Configuration and check if they are there. Negative. So I change the SATA Mode Selection back the AHCI and Save Changes and reboot. Checked after reboot and they still don't appear.

All I want to do is have 2x M.2 drives (one bootable and one as a separate drive) show up in the bios so I can install windows 10. Please let me know what I should try as I can't see any other way of contacting support for Asrock (I'm in Australia BTW).

QUICK EDIT: I booted Windows 10 on a Kingston Savage SSD and the Drives appeared in Disk Management. Testing now to see how I can boot from them.

QUICK EDIT 2: I can't get the BIOS to recognise the two installed M.2 drives. Windows recognises them fine and read/write performance is fantastic. I need to be able to make the BIOS recognise them so I can make Windows 10 recognise them. That's what it comes down to now. Is there a BIOS setting I am missing to allow P2.00 BIOS to see them?


Edited by TechWiz - 04 Nov 2015 at 5:06pm
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harlanrm View Drop Down
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Points: 1 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote harlanrm Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 Nov 2015 at 12:38pm
I am in a similar situation.

I have a Z170 Gaming ITX/ac.

I updated the BIOS to version 1.3.

Windows 10 Home recognizes the drive (Samsung 950 Pro).  I was even able to clone the Samsung 850 EVO.

Sadly The BIOS does not recognize the drive, so I am unable to boot to it.

Hopefully a BIOS update is in the works?


Edited by harlanrm - 05 Nov 2015 at 12:40pm
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parsec View Drop Down
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Quick answer for you: First, find the CSM option, at the bottom of the Boot screen. If it is Enabled (default), find the Launch Storage OpROM Policy sub-option, and set it to UEFI Only. Or if you know how to install Windows for UEFI booting, set CSM to Disabled.

Next, when installing Windows 10, select a Custom installation and select Load Driver. Have the IRST 14.6 "F6" driver on a USB drive, which you browse to and is then loaded by the Windows Installer. When complete your NVMe PCIe SSD RAID 0 volume should be visible to select for installing Windows 10. It is NOT required for the RAID volume to be included in the Boot order list in order to be found by the Windows 10 Installer. The same is true for a SINGLE PCIe SSD.

If you are looking for a Boot entry of "950 Pro", you won't be seeing that. If you have an entry called "Windows Boot Manager", that is your 950 Pro. Actually, you should see both of those entries on one line. If not, you've done something wrong.

If you think a BIOS update is necessary... I'm sorry but do you really think you are the first person to have ever used a NVMe SSD on a ASRock Z170 board? Read on please.

I'm sorry there is no documentation regarding the behavior of PCIe SSDs of AHCI or NVMe protocols in the UEFI Storage Configuration screen and others in the UEFI.

Don't expect these SSDs to be listed the same way as SATA drives are in the UEFI, or what works for SATA drives to also work for PCIe SSDs. Some things won't work the same at all.

We are now working with multiple different storage protocols used at the same time on a computer platform (PC) that was really not designed to accommodate that.

When Samsung first released their first PCIe SSD, the XP941, they did so ONLY to OEM PC manufactures. They were never meant to be sold at retail, and never appeared among Samsung's retail SSD product listings. The next model, the SM951, was also not a retail product.

Now we understand why.

They are not plug and play devices, and require special configuration, BIOS options, and Option ROMs (part of a BIOS/UEFI). Samsung had control over this with the OEM manufactures. Once they were retail products, the owner is on their own, whether they knew it or not. Meaning does their mother board and its firmware support these SSDs.

It is true that recently both of those Samsung PCIe SSDs were sold by a few retailers. We now have the first true retail version, the 950 Pro. What hasn't changed is these SSDs are not simple plug and play drives, particularly when used in RAID.

BTW, the Intel Z170 chipset and IRST 14.6 software are the first official hardware and software that supports RAID 0 with PCIe SSDs. It is far from perfect yet and is not anywhere near as stable as it is with SATA drives.

WARNING: If you clear the UEFI/CMOS or update the UEFI to a new/different version, both of which set all UEFI options to their defaults, the RAID 0 array will fail and cannot be recovered.

That is not simply a case of booting the PC in AHCI mode, I wish it was. I learned this myself as every UEFI clear caused my RAID 0 volume of SM951s to fail. Other users confirmed this behavior.

I highly suggest installing Win 10 on a SATA drive in RAID mode, and then experiment with RAID 0 and your 950s. I would never suggest creating your first PCIe SSD RAID 0 volume for a Windows installation.
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@parsec: Should I need any "F6" additional driver if I only intend to run a Samsung 950 Pro in non-raid mode? 

I am about to purchase the Z170 Extreme 7+ motherboard plus a Samsung 950 Pro and want to feel confident that I will be able to use this combo as a boot device for Win10.

Thanks in advance!


Edited by gussboy - 05 Nov 2015 at 11:43pm
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Dan View Drop Down
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harlanrm,

If your boot options include "Windows Boot Manager" select it to see whether you can then boot.

Dan
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So if I understand correctly the ASRock Z170 motherboards support the Samsung 950 Pro. The only bios change required is setting "UEFI only" under the CSM section?

I was just wanting to get this confirmed before purchasing the 950 Pro ssd to go with a Z170 Extreme 7+ board.

Not trying to do RAID mode. Only single 950 pro as a boot drive for Win10...



Edited by gussboy - 06 Nov 2015 at 7:21am
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Greetings, this is ASRock Technical Supports Department.

Please refer the video to create the RAID 0 function with NVME M.2 device on Z170 Extreme7+.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp3eOrbQeiA

Then please load RAID driver in Windows 10 installation as the link: 
http://asrock.pc.cdn.bitgravity.com/Drivers/Intel/SATA/Floopy(v14.6.0.1029_PV).zip 

Your system should be able to recognize the disk.


Thank you for your patience.

If any, please feel free to contact us!


Kindest Regards,
ASRock TSD
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Also: Make sure that if you want the 950 Pro Raid to be the boot O/S drive to follow this guide:

http://download.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/sb/nvme_boot_guide_332098001us.pdf

You will need to boot your O/S install device (in my case a Windows 10 USB Install USB Drive) as a UEFI Boot, and not a USB boot device.

Otherwise you will get the "Cannot install to this drive because it is not bootable" error when trying to install the O/S

***UPDATE*** I can now confirm that the above does work. Went home for lunch and set the first boot device to UEFI for the Windows 10 Install Flash Drive instead of the USB option.

I was then able to install Windows 10 to the 950 Pro Raid!!

Only took me two days to figure it out...


Edited by Starman63 - 07 Nov 2015 at 2:35am
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Hey Parsec, miss you.

The 14.0 series adds the PCIE / NMVe RAID support, not the 14.6, we have the 14.5 EFI RAID driver in the UEFI,  if it was 14.6 we couldn't add a RST RAID driver.

The 14.0 release notes.  I know you like to be informed so it's why I'm posting it.

14.0

-Support for PCIe NVMe storage devices
- Support for up to 3 PCIe storage devices
-Support for RAID0/1/5 volumes with PCIe storage devices
-Support for RTD3 on RAID volumes
-NVMe1.2 compliance
-NVMe Security Send and Security Receive (no boot support)
-NVMe Autonomous Power State Transitions




Edited by odiebugs - 07 Nov 2015 at 6:01am
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Originally posted by gussboy gussboy wrote:

Should I need any "F6" additional driver if I only intend to run a Samsung 950 Pro in non-raid mode? 

Can someone please clarify this? I also have the Z170 Gaming ITX/ac, and am currently waiting for stock of the 950 Pro.
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