How To Install Windows On A PCIe SSD

eComposer wrote: Hello Parsec, Well I haven't been around because the RAID 0 died, and I have only now months later got a basic SSD to finally install Windows.  Bizarre, LOL. So, I've hit yet another brick wall with this ASRock Z170 Extreme 7+ Motherboard, which so far has been out of action far more than the time it briefly worked I'm sorry to say... So, now I'm trying to install Windows on just one of the Samsung 960 Evo SSDs.  Every time I put one or both in the M2 slots, the PC will not move beyond the initial ASRock screen with the options such as BIOS F2, Boot F11 etc.  It just hangs. I am totally stumped how to move past this. I did finally get to flash update to the latest BIOS version, and did change the CSM policy.  Other than that, I've checked to ensure there are no drive conflicts for any of the M2 SSDs with the SATA drives so this is not the issue. I can't work out why it hangs like this, yet once the M2 SSDs are removed, it will start on a standard SATA boot SSD.  Odd really, wonder if it's something simple I've missed. Could it be because of the failed RAID 0?  I do not know how to delete the drives or reformat or whatever is needed as I can never get to the BIOS or anything else if they are installed. Would greatly appreciate any help you can render.  I'm back to square 1 again.  :)

So the RAID 0 array failed? If and when it failed, the first thing you should have done is go into the UEFI, go to the IRST utility screen, and delete the RAID 0 array.

With any type of drive used in a RAID array, HDD, SSD, or NVMe SSD, the drives are configured for RAID, which is unlike any other type of formatting of a single drive. That formatting must be completely cleaned up before any drive of a multi-drive RAID array can be used for anything else. Did you do anything to clean up those SSDs before you tried to use them as single drives? I guess you said you didn't.

I'm sorry, but to blame the board, and saying "... hitting yet another brick wall with this ASRock Z170 Extreme 7+..." is putting the blame on the wrong thing. I told you when you first asked about creating a RAID 0 array with NVMe SSDs as the OS drive without any experience using RAID would be very difficult. All of the RAID support is provided by Intel and their IRST RAID driver. ASRock just passes that along to us.

Another RAID 0 user in this forum, clubfoot, that also uses the Z170 Extreme7+, just added a third NVMe SSD to his RAID 0 array of 950 Pros. He's not having any of the problems that you apparently have. Using RAID takes experience, and using RAID 0 in particular, which has no backup or recovery, is the most difficult to deal with. Losing one or two RAID 0 arrays as we gain experience with it is pretty standard stuff for most people.

It makes no sense, even if the RAID array failed, that you should be stuck at the ASRock splash screen. Did you clear the UEFI/BIOS, and possibly be not in RAID mode anymore?

Without having the PC in front of me, it's very difficult to diagnose what is going on. Plus just saying the RAID array failed tells us nothing. Did it no longer appear in the boot order as a bootable entry? What happened when it failed, you simply could not boot the PC? And that just happened randomly for no apparent reason?

Are there any updates to the instructions detailed in the original post for ASRock motherboards based on the new 250 and 270 chip sets?

theBitz wrote: Are there any updates to the instructions detailed in the original post for ASRock motherboards based on the new 250 and 270 chip sets?

No, exactly the same, nothing changes and no reason for any changes.

The main, most important thing to do is, regardless of the Windows installation media, USB flash drive or optical disk, is to be certain you select the entry in the boot order for the Windows installation media that looks like this:

"UEFI: <installation media device name>"

Where installation media device name is whatever you are using to install Windows from. It MUST have the prefix "UEFI" before the device name.

You may not need to change anything else in the UEFI, specifically the CSM option at all, to see that entry in the boot order for the Windows installation media.

If you do not get a boot order entry with the prefix "UEFI", then you must configure the CSM option sub-setting, or disable CSM.

At first try, with CSM enabled, set Launch Storage OpROM Policy to UEFI Only. You MUST save and exit the UEFI before that change will be applied. Then check again for an entry with the UEFI prefix. If you disable CSM, you must save and exit to apply it before anything will change.

If you are using an optical drive, either USB or SATA, and cannot get an entry for it with the UEFI prefix, then that device simply cannot be used.

Windows 7 is still a problem, even more so with Intel 100 and 200 series chipset boards, and now with all Ryzen AM4 boards. Besides the lack of an NVMe driver, those boards need a USB 3.0 driver added to the Windows 7 installation media. ASRock provides a utility program to do that, and a version for Ryzen. Check the Beta area of your Ryzen board's download pages.

Will a Samsung 960 EVO work on an ASROCK Z87 PRO4 board? I followed the guide and all the settings are correct. The SSD is in an ASUS HYPER M.2 X4 MINI in my second PCIE x16 slot. I can install windows 10 on the SSD, but it does not show up in my boot list after.

rabidplatypus wrote: Will a Samsung 960 EVO work on an ASROCK Z87 PRO4 board? I followed the guide and all the settings are correct. The SSD is in an ASUS HYPER M.2 X4 MINI in my second PCIE x16 slot. I can install windows 10 on the SSD, but it does not show up in my boot list after.

As far as I can see, your board does not have a UEFI/BIOS update that adds NVMe support, which is required for most NVMe SSDs like a 960 EVO to be used as the OS drive.