GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

[boondocks]

Re: GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

The Gigabyte BIOS menu does have a CSM setting but it is only revealed after selecting "Windows 8" under the "Windows 8 Features" setting. I have tried that but the Windows 7 installer will not even start with this setting. With the "Windows 8" setting selected a "CSM Support" setting is revealed with "Always" and "Never" as the choices. There is also a "Boot Mode Selection" setting with "UEFI and Legacy", "Legacy Only", and "UEFI only" as the choices. With the "Windows 8 Features" set to "Other OS" (required for anything other than Windows 8) there is a setting for "Other PCI Device ROM Priority" with "UEFI OpROM" and "Legacy OpROM" as the choices. I have tried both with no luck.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has taken an interest in this thread- this has been a most frustrating build and it really helps to know there are others out there trying to help solve this.

I would stay on Gigabyte until they gave me a satisfactory answer.

Otherwise;
Can you find anyone else using this particular M.2 drive?

Did you buy your board at Newegg? They have an in-house Gigabyte support person that is pretty helpful.

[maceo40505]

Re: GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

I just got a slightly more encouraging reply from Gigabyte indicating they are actually looking into the issue- this is an upgrade from the stock responses I was getting at first. They also asked me to try with Windows 8 which I will do later today. I think the one person I have seen with this combo functioning was running Windows 8 so it just might work though I loath Win 8!!

[parsec]

Re: GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

The Gigabyte BIOS menu does have a CSM setting but it is only revealed after selecting "Windows 8" under the "Windows 8 Features" setting. I have tried that but the Windows 7 installer will not even start with this setting. With the "Windows 8" setting selected a "CSM Support" setting is revealed with "Always" and "Never" as the choices. There is also a "Boot Mode Selection" setting with "UEFI and Legacy", "Legacy Only", and "UEFI only" as the choices. With the "Windows 8 Features" set to "Other OS" (required for anything other than Windows 8) there is a setting for "Other PCI Device ROM Priority" with "UEFI OpROM" and "Legacy OpROM" as the choices. I have tried both with no luck.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has taken an interest in this thread- this has been a most frustrating build and it really helps to know there are others out there trying to help solve this.

Why must they make those options so complicated with goofy settings (what's the difference between "Always" and Enabled, or "Never" and Disabled?)

So no CSM option without the "Windows 8" setting. Windows 7 officially supports UEFI booting installations, I've done it myself.

So only a PCI device option ROM option, that's a shame and is one reason why your installation would not work. You can see my ASRock board has the "Storage OpROM Policy" that allows you to use the EFI compatible SATA option ROM instead of the standard legacy option ROM with legacy booting OS installations. You would think the option you do have (PCI, not PCIe?) would be related to SSDs that use the M.2 inteface, which uses PCIe lanes, but apparently not.

A guy posting in the ASRock support forum has an XP941 as his OS drive, using an ASRock Z97 Extreme 6 board, lotuspro is his name.

I hope Windows 8 works for you, but if the EFI compatible SATA OROM is not in the BIOS file, IMO it won't help.

[maceo40505]

Re: GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

parsec- There is a "Storage Boot Option Control" with choices of "Disabled", "UEFI only", "Legacy only", "Legacy First", and "UEFI only". I have tried all. Also in the SATA setup area if SATA Mode Selection = RAID the following settings become available: "M.2 PCIE SSD RAID Mode" with options of "Enabled" or "Disabled". "SATA Express SRIS capabilities" with options of "Auto", "Disabled", and "Enabled". Most of my testing has been with the SATA Mode set to "RAID" and the other two fields at their default settings of "Enabled" and "Auto" respectively.

I tested last night with Windows 8.1 and many different BIOS settings but getting all the same results as with Win 7.

I found a person on the hardware forum at www.BeyondWindows9.com who claims to have a XP941 boot drive on a Gigabyte Z97 board but I have been unable to contact him directly.

[maceo40505]

Re: GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

Update: Gigabyte finally gave me these settings to try and they worked with Windows 8.1. Apparently installing from an optical drive is a very important part of getting this combo to work. Still pressing for a Windows 7 solution.


From Gigabyte Supprt:
Peripherals:Bios Features :
CSM - Never
make sure to choose UEFI as the boot type for your optical drive and make sure to supply the raid driver for the board during OS Installation.

[Julian Toledo]

Re: GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

Update: Gigabyte finally gave me these settings to try and they worked with Windows 8.1. Apparently installing from an optical drive is a very important part of getting this combo to work. Still pressing for a Windows 7 solution.


From Gigabyte Supprt:
Peripherals:Bios Features :
CSM - Never
make sure to choose UEFI as the boot type for your optical drive and make sure to supply the raid driver for the board during OS Installation.

I was able to make the XP941 Bootable as AHCI on the Z97X-UD5H by adding the Samsung DXE driver to the BIOS, see:
Clover General discussion - Page 285 - Clover - InsanelyMac Forum

I cannot believe Gigabyte has not done that and I had to mod the bios myself.

[parsec]

Re: GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

Nice job Julian getting that DXE driver (I'm sure it is the Option ROM) into your board's UEFI. The use of RAID as the SATA mode forces the Option ROM to be used, as long as it is the correct one, that is.

One thing to consider about why Gigabyte does not include that Option ROM (which might not allow UEFI booting of ANY kind, which IMO is more unbelievable) is that the Samsung XP941 is not sold by Samsung at the retail level, at least in the USA. You won't find it on Samsung's website with their other SSDs, no information about it is available on their website. When you can purchase one, it is in OEM plain brown packaging, obviously not retail. Gigabyte may believe they have no reason to support a SSD that is not (yet) sold at retail, which is not unbelievable IMO.

OTOH, simply using the appropriate and readily available Option ROM in their board's UEFI (as ASRock does) is really not difficult, and is yet another page in the weird Gigabyte BIOS/UEFI story.

[Julian Toledo]

Re: GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

Nice job Julian getting that DXE driver (I'm sure it is the Option ROM) into your board's UEFI. The use of RAID as the SATA mode forces the Option ROM to be used, as long as it is the correct one, that is.

One thing to consider about why Gigabyte does not include that Option ROM (which might not allow UEFI booting of ANY kind, which IMO is more unbelievable) is that the Samsung XP941 is not sold by Samsung at the retail level, at least in the USA. You won't find it on Samsung's website with their other SSDs, no information about it is available on their website. When you can purchase one, it is in OEM plain brown packaging, obviously not retail. Gigabyte may believe they have no reason to support a SSD that is not (yet) sold at retail, which is not unbelievable IMO.

OTOH, simply using the appropriate and readily available Option ROM in their board's UEFI (as ASRock does) is really not difficult, and is yet another page in the weird Gigabyte BIOS/UEFI story.

Yes, I got the Samsung DXE Option Rom from the AsRock Z97 Extreme 6 Bios and inserted it to the latest Bios from Gigabyte by using the AMI Aptio EFI MMTool, I don't need to force the boot in RAID mode, the BIOS finds the XP941 like a regular AHCI SSD. It is not a hard procedure, it is just that I have never done it before and playing with it seemed a bit dangerous for the first time.

Makes sense what you mention about Gigabyte not including support for the XP941 for being OEM, mine came in the plain brown packaging.

Cheers.

[SmileyWilly]

Re: GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

Hi :-)

I am new to this forum so please excuse me if I am not following the required etiquette...I am hoping someone here can help.

I have recently completed a new build of a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-GAMING-7 using a Samsung XP941 PCIE SSD 128GB (part number MZ-HPU128T) in the M.2 slot. I want to boot into Windows 8.1 from this SSD. However, cannot see drive in BIOS, although Windows 8.1 installer does see it but will not allow installation even after loading the latest Intel SATA RAID/AHCI driver from the Gigabyte. Installer states: "Windows cannot be installed on drive 0 partition 1 > Windows cannot be installed to this disk (I don't believe that!). Your computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure disk controller is enabled in BIOS"

I have tried numerous BIOS setting combinations with no luck. Have tried booting with Active@Boot and creating partition on drive (both MBR and GPT) setting drive as "active", etc. Gigabyte M.2 Qualified Vendor's List includes my Samsung part number, and like the original poster of this thread stated, many other Z97 chipsets (ASUS and ASRock) are reporting success with this combination. Has anybody got this working on a Gigabyte Z97X board yet? Surely I haven't selected a Mobo in which you cannot boot from the M.2 SSD??

There appears to be nil info on the web regarding booting from this SSD, and the Gigabyte website and mobo manual are about as helpful as an ashtray on a motorbike! So frustrating trying to solve this issue...I have looked at so many install guides and forums...now it's time to ask :-)

Am hoping someone can assist me please...thanks in advance.

[Julian Toledo]

Re: GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

Hi :-)

I am new to this forum so please excuse me if I am not following the required etiquette...I am hoping someone here can help.

I have recently completed a new build of a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-GAMING-7 using a Samsung XP941 PCIE SSD 128GB (part number MZ-HPU128T) in the M.2 slot. I want to boot into Windows 8.1 from this SSD. However, cannot see drive in BIOS, although Windows 8.1 installer does see it but will not allow installation even after loading the latest Intel SATA RAID/AHCI driver from the Gigabyte. Installer states: "Windows cannot be installed on drive 0 partition 1 > Windows cannot be installed to this disk (I don't believe that!). Your computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure disk controller is enabled in BIOS"

I have tried numerous BIOS setting combinations with no luck. Have tried booting with Active@Boot and creating partition on drive (both MBR and GPT) setting drive as "active", etc. Gigabyte M.2 Qualified Vendor's List includes my Samsung part number, and like the original poster of this thread stated, many other Z97 chipsets (ASUS and ASRock) are reporting success with this combination. Has anybody got this working on a Gigabyte Z97X board yet? Surely I haven't selected a Mobo in which you cannot boot from the M.2 SSD??

There appears to be nil info on the web regarding booting from this SSD, and the Gigabyte website and mobo manual are about as helpful as an ashtray on a motorbike! So frustrating trying to solve this issue...I have looked at so many install guides and forums...now it's time to ask :-)

Am hoping someone can assist me please...thanks in advance.

I added the Samsung driver to the bios, so my case may be different. When I installed Windows 8.1 on the SSD I had to remove all other drivers from the PC to avoid errors, I guess that using RAID and having only the XP941 connected should help.

Cheers,
Julian.

[parsec]

Re: GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

Hi :-)

I am new to this forum so please excuse me if I am not following the required etiquette...I am hoping someone here can help.

I have recently completed a new build of a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-GAMING-7 using a Samsung XP941 PCIE SSD 128GB (part number MZ-HPU128T) in the M.2 slot. I want to boot into Windows 8.1 from this SSD. However, cannot see drive in BIOS, although Windows 8.1 installer does see it but will not allow installation even after loading the latest Intel SATA RAID/AHCI driver from the Gigabyte. Installer states: "Windows cannot be installed on drive 0 partition 1 > Windows cannot be installed to this disk (I don't believe that!). Your computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure disk controller is enabled in BIOS"

I have tried numerous BIOS setting combinations with no luck. Have tried booting with Active@Boot and creating partition on drive (both MBR and GPT) setting drive as "active", etc. Gigabyte M.2 Qualified Vendor's List includes my Samsung part number, and like the original poster of this thread stated, many other Z97 chipsets (ASUS and ASRock) are reporting success with this combination. Has anybody got this working on a Gigabyte Z97X board yet? Surely I haven't selected a Mobo in which you cannot boot from the M.2 SSD??

There appears to be nil info on the web regarding booting from this SSD, and the Gigabyte website and mobo manual are about as helpful as an ashtray on a motorbike! So frustrating trying to solve this issue...I have looked at so many install guides and forums...now it's time to ask :-)

Am hoping someone can assist me please...thanks in advance.

The fix for this issue is described in the post just above yours, by Julian. The rest of this thread describes the situation, which you apparently did not read.

The Gigabyte UEFI for your board and other Gigabyte boards does not have the appropriate UEFI SATA Option ROM (part of the UEFI/BIOS) required for the XP941. As Julian described, he had to modify his UEFI/BIOS by adding that Option ROM, which was sourced from an ASRock board.

Sorry to say, believe that Windows cannot be installed to that disk, given your board's UEFI, since that is true. Of course, that is a generic error message, but at least the installation process is stopped at that point. It would failed soon after the installation began.

There are at least two types of M.2 SSDs, ones that will work with most any board, and others that require certain things from the UEFI/BIOS of the board. The XP941 is one of the SSDs that requires certain things from the UEFI/BIOS of the board. That is one reason why it was not sold at retail until recently, Samsung knew many boards would not support it. Now some boards (a minority) have a UEFI that will support the XP941, but yours does not, at least at this time.

[Mitchman]

Re: GA-Z97-D3H bios can't "see" Samsung XP941 in M.2 socket

Hi All,

I have a Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 3 Motherboard BIOS ver F5, and i am booting from the XP941 256gb module in the M.2 socket.
To get the XP941 to boot i had to first make it an 'active' partition. (as someone suggested in a post)
After making it active, i installed win8 using a USB DVD drive (as i don't have an internal drive).
I used this RAID driver to install it "Intel_RAID_Win7-8-8-1_VER13031001.zip". (As the one provided by gigabyte didn't work)

My Bios setting are:
1: Go to -> Peripherals - SATA Configuration
2: Change 'SATA Mode Selection' to RAID. (M.2 PCIe SSD RAID Mode should be 'enabled' by Default, if not enable it)
3: Go to BIOS Features
4: Set Windows 8 Features to:

Windows 8 Features = Windows 8
CSM Support = Always
Boot Mode Selection = UEFI Only
LAN PXE Boot Option ROM = Enabled/Disabled (your choice)
Storage Boot Option Control = UEFI Only
Other PCI Devices ROM Prioity = UEFI OpROM

Save this BIOS configuration.


Insert the Window installation media (USB, DVD), when the PC is booting, just after the beep sound, press F12 to choose the device you wish to load from, choose the UEFI device you have windows installation on.
(I just ran a test with win7 and win8, both installed with out any headaches using a USB bootable drive)

When the installation begins you will be prompted to choose where you would like to install windows, the screen will shown no Drives found, You will need to load the Raid driver mentioned above, Click on where it says 'Load Driver'.
Once you have installed the RAID driver, the XP941 will be in the list. Highlight the drive and click next.
Then follow the onscreen instructions. Win8 will load in 4-5mins. Then you will be presented with a screen that looks similar to this:





Note: If installing from a USB ensure that you are using UEFI settings. A program called 'rufus-1.4.12.exe' will be able to create a USB installation of windows with these settings (you will need an ISO image of windows).
Simply choose 'GPT partition scheme for UEFI computer' in the settings of rufus


I hope this helps someone