Steely wrote: I am using the m.2 slot closest to the proccesor in the Center of the board. I have a I7 6800k Lga2011. I am using the Sata ports on the side of the board to the right of the x99 chip. Sounds like I need to move the 600 to the other m2 slot? I have nothing plugged into the ssata ports at this time. CD Rom is in a regular sata port. Windows does load off the CD but when we get to where I want to install it there's nothing there to install it to. Should I still make a USB Windows loader? Thank you so much for your help!

As I said, I'm not 100% sure which M.2 slot is M2_1, and M2_2 on your board, but I'm assuming the M2_1 slot is the one closest to the CPU, which you have been using.

You have a Broadwell-E i7-6800K! That explains what is happening to you, given that the M.2 slot you've been using is the one closest to the CPU, which I believe is the M2_1 slot.

From your board's specs:

If you install CPU with 28 lanes, the M2_1 only supports SATA type M.2 module.

Your i7-6800K has 28 PCIe 3.0 lanes. That means for an NVMe SSD like your 600p, you MUST put it in the M2_2 slot, which is the one way below the CPU, in the lower right hand corner of the board.

So yes, move your 600p to the lower M.2 slot! It will also run cooler in that location, since it will be farther from your video card.

Next, you can try to use the Win 10 installation disk, but you MUST set the boot order when you install Win 10 to use the "UEFI:" entry for your optical drive.

When you start the Win 10 installation, choose the Custom installation option. That will show you which drives are available to use for the installation. That way you can verify that the 600p is being recognized.

One more thing, very important, do NOT have any other drives besides the 600p and the optical drive connected to the board! Just those two during the Win 10 installation.

Finally, if even after using the "UEFI:" entry for the optical disk for the Win 10 installation fails, then you will need to create the USB flash drive Win 10 installation media. If you feel like doing that anyway, fine, but you can try the optical disk first, just trying to make it easier for you.

But again, if you were to use a USB flash drive for the Win 10 installation, you MUST select the entry in the Boot Order for the USB flash drive that is, "UEFI: <flash drive name>". You MUST use the UEFI entry regardless of the type of installation media when using an NVMe SSD, like your 600p.

The everything works great now! Moved the m.2 to the other slot and Windows installed flawlessly! Thank you for all your help!! You were right on! Happy Holidays!

Hello,  first of all thanks for the excellent guide!

I parsed a few pages of this thread but couldn't find an answer to what I am looking for so here goes. I am posting this only to save some time in case something doesn't work as expected and stay without a working pc.

I am an Asrock Extreme 4 Z97 motherboard and have already installed the latest bios firmware - it states that NVMe has been supported a few versions back.

I have already bought (but not installed yet) an Asus Hyper M2 x4 PCIE adaptor and my Samsung 960 EVO is arriving tomorrow - I bought the adaptor since the motherboard only supports up to 2x speeds and the drive can go up to 4x.

a) I wanted to ask if there is anything additional required compared to the guide on the first page if you want to make a clean install on an M2 drive on a PCIE adaptor.

b) I have prepared a USB flash drive with Windows 10. I used rufus to make the USB bootable. Do you have to select GPT or MBR for UEFI? Is GPT required for all M2 drives?

Looking forward to your answer!

My system - Asrock X99 Extreme3, I7 5820, one MSI R9-290 gaming VC, 32 GB of ram, Asus PCIE WLAN, Win 10 64 home

I am pulling my hair out.  After removing all SATA devices (3) I managed to get the 960 EVO to get recognized and have windows up and running.  That only took hours of fun and I lost count of the reboots.  However...  as soon as I plug in one of the other SATA drives the 960 disappears.  It never did show up as an M.2, just as a boot option. 

I managed to get all the chipset drivers, 960 drivers and the 960 firmware updated on the new Win install and it reboots just fine so long as no other SATA devices are connected.  Before I go into an infinite loop of trial and error, where should I go from here?

Thanks,
Kurt

Weirdness continues.  Something about either the graphics card and PCIe card together or... something in Windows is causing odd behavior.  When I boot, it seems like there is a delay before windows starts.  There is a blank screen, but if I hit enter then windows starts.  Sometimes the system just starts up like everything is just fine, sometimes it loses the M.2 drive in bios and the only way to make it recognize the drive is to swap the video card and network card in the slots.  I bought a USB adapter so I can get rid of the pcie wireless card, hoping having only one card will untangle this situation.