M.2 will not become a boot drive. Any ideals or something I missed?

[raystevens73]

Just bought a new set up using the Ryzen 5 2600X, Gigabyte B450 Aorus Elite, Sabrent M.2 Gen3 X4 PCIe SSD. I have installed it in the top slot since the bottom only supports X2 and I have looked through all I can find in the search lists. Things like disable CMS then set to secure boot and using Shift + F10 to run DISKPART commands. I have made the drive GPT and MBR but nothing has worked. Loaded Windows 10 in a standard SSD and have formatted the drive and changed it to both GPT and MBR there but its always the same. In my bios it shows as a Realtek (some numbers) but doesn't have a size listed. Windows installer list the drive as Disk 0 since its the only one installed when I am trying to do this. It list in red at the bottom that "Windows can not be installed on this disk"
Have also made a new boot usb with Rufus so that I knew for sure it was set to MBR, GPT, UFEI bootable drive in NTFS format.
The only thing I have not done is flashed the bios to the version F5 because it states in the notes for F4 Note : Update AMD Chipset Driver 18.10.20.02 or latest version before update this BIOS. The only notes for the 2 new bios revisions are for memory and usb improvements.

[chiefputsilao✖️ping]

i have no experience in using M.2 SSD but i have used rufus in creating GPT or MBR-based installers for many years.

for old systems, i use MBR rufus and for newer systems, i use GPT rufus installers.
i do not use diskpart in partitioning and formatting the system since windows installer (via rufus) can do that.

what i did are the following:
1. insert windows 10 usb installer
2. boot from the usb installer using boot selector (can be F8, F10, or another function key based on BIOS maker)
3. install windows 10
4. partition the disk using windows 10 or using the free version of minitool partition wiazard
( https://www.minitool.com/partition-manager/partition-wizard-home.html )

i am not sure what you mean by 'i made the drive GPT and MBR ' as they cannot be both MBR and GPT. they can be either one only.

[raystevens73]

I was stating that I have tried both ways since all the post from Tom's hardware and Reddit say it has to be GPT and the next one I read states MBR.

[David]

Realtek is your NIC, not the SSD.

[raystevens73]

So then its not showing the drive in the bios? It list it in the installer though.

[David]

Take your PC to a Repair Shop and pay a professional to do it.

[raystevens73]

And also have the drive labeled as the D: drive right now since I had to use my old SSD to get it running.

[chiefputsilao✖️ping]

frrom: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3473090/install-windows.html

Calvin7 Jul 20, 2017, 12:45 PM
rog crosshair vi (hero or extreme)

Page 3-20 manual
Compatibility Support Mode - set to [DISABLED]

Secure Boot

1- The M.2 drive has to be the only drive installed.

2 - Go into the bios, under the boot tab there is an option for CSM, make sure it is disabled.

3 - Click on secure boot option below and make sure it is set to other OS, not windows UEFI.

4 - Click on key management and clear secure boot keys.

5 - Insert a USB memory stick with a UEFI bootable iso of Windows 10 on it, USB3 is quicker but USB2 works also. A Windows DVD won’t work unless you’ve created your own UEFI Bootable DVD.

6 - Press F10 to save, exit and reboot.

7 - Windows 10 will now start installing to your NVME drive as it has its own NVME driver built in.

8 - When the PC reboots hit F2 to go back into the BIOS, you will see under boot priority that windows boot manager now lists your NVME drive.

9 - Click on secure boot again but now set it to WIndows UEFI mode. (see #3 above)

10 - Click on key management and install default secure boot keys

11 - Press F10 to save and exit and windows will finish the install. Once you have Windows up and running, shutdown the PC and reconnect your other SATA drives.

[raystevens73]

As stated above I have read all of those and tried them all.

[chiefputsilao✖️ping]

Originally posted by raystevens73:

And also have the drive labeled as the D: drive right now since I had to use my old SSD to get it running.

if you are using an old SSD to get it running, then you failed at step 1
1- The M.2 drive has to be the only drive installed.

[raystevens73]

Miss read again, I stated that the M.2 was the only drive installed but I used my old SSD to get Windows running so I could change the drive formats in the device manager. And so I could try to find an answer in this post.

[David]

You don’t want free forum support, you NEED paid support from an IT Professional.
I suggest you seek it before you make your problems worse.

[raystevens73]

Will you move on. No trolls needed here.

[_I_]

remove the sata ssd
boot to bios, enable and select the m.2 ssd as first boot device on the startup/boot config page

if you cloned the sata ssd to the m.2 ssd, it should work just fine

[raystevens73]

It seems that it is not showing up in the bios so I just finished the chipset drivers and going to do the bios flash now. Also there are no drivers listed for download on the Sabrent site for the M.2 but they are on the SSD itself.

[David]

I’m clearly not trolling, you are just making it worse...
/facepalm