SSD eDrive support
Printed From: ASRock.com
Category: Technical Support
Forum Name: AMD Motherboards
Forum Description: Question about ASRock AMD motherboards
URL: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=9739
Printed Date: 22 Jul 2025 at 8:33am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: SSD eDrive support
Posted By: Squidder
Subject: SSD eDrive support
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2018 at 8:24am
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" rel="nofollow - [URL=][/URL]Hello, I have an AB350 Gaming ITX/ac and I am using a Samsung 960 Evo Nvme M.2 SSD which, like many other recent SSDs, support Microsoft's "eDrive" (encrypted drive) standard, which allows hardware SSD encryption via Windows Bitlocker. I, and several other users of Samsung Nvme SSD drives, have discovered that although our SSDs supports eDrive, the encryption can only be enabled when the drive is not the boot drive, eDrive only works when the SSD is used as a data drive. Samsung has responded that they have investigated the issue with motherboard chipset manufacturers and found that there is an issue with the BIOS/UEFI of most motherboards that do not allow them to run eDrive on the boot drive - see the top reply at https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/memoryandstorage/thread-id/188/page/1 , which states: "After investigating the HW encryption problems from a compatibility point of view, we found this issue can be only be fixed with a BIOS update by the motherboard manufacturers. Through technical collaboration with one of the major BIOS chipset companies, we have verified that a new BIOS update of the motherboard BIOS works well with the H/W encryption function in our SSD drives. We will continue to verify the solution with the other BIOS chipset companies. We expect that the motherboard manufacturers will publicize the information of their BIOS updates for a solution." Microsoft describes the requirements for eDrive at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/information-protection/encrypted-hard-drive, and the relevant one seems to be "The computer must be UEFI 2.3.1 based and have the EFI_STORAGE_SECURITY_COMMAND_PROTOCOL defined. (This protocol is used to allow programs running in the EFI boot services environment to send security protocol commands to the drive)." After reading around on various forums this seems to mean that the BIOS/UEFI needs to support an "ATA password" (i.e., not the passwords that are currently available in the bios for e.g. my motherboard). From what I have read, I understand that motherboard manufacturers in the past might have been reluctant to enable this feature because people can make their data completely inaccessible if they forget this password, but surely this setting can then e.g. be hidden behind several submenus and with appropriate warnings in the BIOS, like it has been done with the overclocking options in the recent BIOS:es? Has anyone else already been in touch with Asrock about this? Or is the "ATA password" already actually enabled on some of Asrock's motherboards? |
Replies:
Posted By: xhue
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2018 at 6:41pm
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" rel="nofollow - Welcome to the ASRock club, brother... The same thing is with their entire AMD lineup. Even my X370 Taichi has the same problem, more than 1 year after its release. Other manufacturers, read ASUS, have this sorted out. They even have NVME secure erase function in their BIOS. But not ASRock, it's too much to ask of them. We have to bake USB boot disks just to wipe our SSD & HDD. My suggestion is to open a ticket with ASRock and continue spamming them about this issue. Write both here https://www.asrock.com/support/index.asp?cat=RMA and https://event.asrock.com/tsd.asp
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Posted By: Squidder
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2018 at 11:05pm
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Thank you, xhue. I've opened a ticket with them already, we'll see how that goes. I'm trying to be optimistic for the time being though, since e.g. the Fatal1ty H97 recently had a BIOS update to "support HDD password", which sounds quite a bit like what I'm after. |
Posted By: xhue
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2018 at 11:44pm
What we're after!  Also, try the RMA email. They usually replay way faster there even for non-RMA matters. I see ASRock often update very old mobos with some fixes or a new feature. Chance is we'll get it too. The bad news? Maybe in 2 or 3 years...
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Squidder wrote:Posted By: Squidder
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2018 at 12:46am
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Just an update for those interested: after sending a slightly edited version of my OP above to Asrock's Support Request page, I received an email with an updated bios (4.70A instead of the official 4.70), presumably with the ATA password feature enabled (I'm not flashing right now, for various reasons, so I cannot confirm 100%). So, although I would prefer to receive it via official channels (especially if BIOS updates are frequent), I cannot complain about a two-working-day delivery. |
Posted By: xhue
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2018 at 6:13am
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Wow! The new build must have been in the works when you have written them. But I for one ain't alpha testing it. We aren't paid for their public beta (I can't really describe their releases otherwise) tests as it is. I'm waiting until this reaches the stable branch. Maybe in 2 years or so.
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