Samsung 950 Pro M.2 not recognised Z170 Extreme7+
Printed From: ASRock.com
Category: Technical Support
Forum Name: Intel Motherboards
Forum Description: Question about ASRock Intel Motherboards
URL: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1159
Printed Date: 10 May 2024 at 8:23pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Samsung 950 Pro M.2 not recognised Z170 Extreme7+
Posted By: TechWiz
Subject: Samsung 950 Pro M.2 not recognised Z170 Extreme7+
Date Posted: 04 Nov 2015 at 3:16pm
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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?
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Replies:
Posted By: harlanrm
Date Posted: 05 Nov 2015 at 12:38pm
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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? |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 05 Nov 2015 at 3:38pm
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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. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: gussboy
Date Posted: 05 Nov 2015 at 11:40pm
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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!
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Posted By: Dan
Date Posted: 06 Nov 2015 at 4:23am
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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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Posted By: gussboy
Date Posted: 06 Nov 2015 at 7:21am
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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... |
Posted By: ASRock_TSD
Date Posted: 06 Nov 2015 at 6:13pm
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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 |
Posted By: Starman63
Date Posted: 06 Nov 2015 at 10:08pm
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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...
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Posted By: odiebugs
Date Posted: 07 Nov 2015 at 5:58am
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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 ------------- asrocking |
Posted By: Prizm
Date Posted: 07 Nov 2015 at 8:11pm
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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gussboy wrote:Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 08 Nov 2015 at 12:52am
You'll be fine, I installed Win 10 last night on my 950 Pro in AHCI mode, without an F6 driver, and it worked perfectly. Using that PC now to write this post. I would suggest letting Windows format the 950. You also must configure the CSM option. With CSM Enabled, set the sub-option "Launch UEFI Storage OpROM Policy" to UEFI only. Or if your video source is GOP compatible (Intel graphics is GOP compatible, most newer video cards are too) you can set CSM to Disabled, which enables UEFI for all the sub-options. This is my first non-RAID Windows installation in years!  ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 08 Nov 2015 at 1:32am
Welcome back odiebugs, why do you miss me?  Where else should I be?  Thanks for posting this information. I normally suggest using the latest IRST driver because if any bug fixes (and there are bugs in IRST if you check the Release Notes) related to NVMe were implemented after version 14.0, then I would prefer to recommend the latest version. Given the way RAID for PCIe SSDs is working now with the latest version or IRST (14.6), which is not quite as good as it does with SATA SSDs, and since IRST 14.0 is the first version that officially supports PCIe SSDs in RAID, and the first that provides support for NVMe SSDs, I assume that later versions will work better. The history of IRST shows us that newer versions are not always better in one way or another, but I'm willing to give Intel the benefit of the doubt in this case. You lost me with this statement: "... we have the 14.5 EFI RAID driver in the UEFI, if it was 14.6 we couldn't add a RST RAID driver". You are right about the 14.5 EFI Option ROM in the UEFI, but I don't understand the part about not being able to add a RST RAID driver. I've used the 14.6 F6 driver and the 14.6 IRST Windows driver and UI software with the 14.5 Option ROM, and both installed fine. I'm just not getting your point. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: odiebugs
Date Posted: 08 Nov 2015 at 4:35am
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@Parsec. Sorry, I assumed you meant that support wasn't added until 14.6, and it's not the option ROM, when you run pure UEFI the firmware drops the ( CSMcore Option Rom ) and it uses the EFI Sata driver in the UEFI. Now it's called the RAID Driver, and is listed in UEFI as RAID Driver and not Sata Driver any longer. I also didn't mean you couldn't add the driver, I just meant that if the 14.5 didn't have PCIe support, adding the 14.6 or any windows based RST driver would be mute. We - meaning, I have the ASrock extreme 7+ and have checked the new RAID Driver and the added NVMe support inside the UEFI. Been busy so I missed you.   ------------- asrocking |
Posted By: PI2R
Date Posted: 27 Dec 2015 at 1:15am
Hi Parsec, I saw your other thread when you were going through this with a couple of other users. Although I have a question for you. Is is the same for a RAID 1 arrays? I was planning on installing windows 10 pro/enterprise on a my 950Pro in a raid 1 array Thank in advance |
Posted By: PI2R
Date Posted: 27 Dec 2015 at 6:37am
Hi again parsec, For your information (and maybe others!) I thought that my experience might be out of interest. I've just been doing some tests with the following config: * ASRock Extreme 7+ (Firmware 2.10) * Intel Core i7 6700K * RAID 1: 2 x 512 Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe * RAID 1: 2 x 1To Samsung 850 Evo SATA3 Inside the UEFI: Disabled CSM under Boot menu Set the SATA mode to be RAID UEFI only, and enabled Rest Built my 2 Raid1 with the Intel Rapid Storage Technology that appeared after an F10 (save and exist) Override the Boot Option to be the DVD in UEFI mode Reboot Once in the disk selection menu within windows 10 installation, I converted my 2 RAID 1 arrays into GPT disks. (At this stage just one thing was a bit weird: when listing the disks under the diskpart tool in order to convert them, both 850 Evo were selectable but only one 950 Pro was visible. I would guess this is due to the technology difference but that would be nice to know more about this just out of curiosity) I installed windows on the M.2 NVMe raid1. So far so good, as expected, windows was booting up quite fast :-) From there I wanted to test 2 things: 1) Can the system recover from a CMOS clear/firmware update? 2) Is UltraFast Boot mode that quick? And Is it relly not possible to access UEFI again without clearing the CMOS? Results: 1) So I turned on UltraFast boot mode, and indeed boot time is quite impressive! 2) Indeed once this option is turned on you cannot access UEFI anymore...! :-p So I cleared the CMOS and I was able to test my first question. To start with, of course UEFI has loaded default settings. I had to disable CSM again, turn on UEFI mode, etc... basically I had to reconfigure the BIOS. First good news, once I had access to the Intel Rapid Storage utilities, I could see that both my RAID 1 arrays were still there. Second good news, I could still boot on my previous installation of windows without any further work. My conclusion: in RAID 1, it seems to be a lot safer to issues, UEFI updates, etc...  I now feel good with my setup unless you have other concerns I should be aware of  |
Posted By: HAVEN
Date Posted: 28 Dec 2015 at 7:13pm
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Hi to all! I would like to use a Z170 motherboard with a Samsung 950 Pro and I5 6600K cpu. I want to feel confident that I will be able to use this combo as a boot device for Win7. After doing my research i decided to buy an AsRock MB. Is Z170 Extreme 7+ a working solution with this set of hardware ? Is there another AsRock MB i could use with 950 Pro and Win 7 boot OS ? Thanks in advance for any help! |