GA-Z170X-Gamming GT MB changes boot partition name after switching to RAID

[CR_Michigan]

Hello and thank you for reading my post. I am building a new computer and I am running into an issue I hope someone may have a workaround for.

My specs:
MB - Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gamming GT ver 1, BIOS F5
CPU - Intel i7-6700k
RAM - 32GB (4 sticks of 8GB) G.Skill F4-3200C16Q-32GVKB
Video - EVGA 980 Ti Classified
HD1- Samsung 950 Pro (M.2) 512MB
HD2 - 4 x WD 2TB Black drives
CPU cooler - Corsair H100i GTX
Power - Corsair HX850i


This is my 5th build in probably the past 10-12 years. It has been about 3 years since my last build.


History (skip to the question if you don't want to read how I got there)
My first issue was trying to load Win 7 to the 950 Pro HD. Windows 7 did not recognize the drive. I eventually was able to get Win 7 loaded with using one of the 2 TB drives and using the Samsung tool to move the data over to the 950. That took a while but figured that one out. Then I added the HD's and found only drives connected to SATA_4 and SATA_5 worked. It took me a while to understand the manual M2D and M2H are reffering to the two different M.2 connectors on the MB. I changed it and then I lost the Win 7 partition (windows could not find it) and gave up on trying to get it to work with Win 7. I was able to get the 950 Pro loaded and going with Win 10. I now believe I lost the Win 7 partition for the same issue I am having below.


My happy surprise was when I turned on the XMP for the memory the MB recognized the 3200 speed on Auto so that was nice.


Question
OK, here is the issue/question. Everything is fine until I plug in the 4 WD 2TB Hard Drives. When I plug one or two I have no issues (AHCI only). When I boot the Gigabyte MB with 1 or 2 extra HD not in RAID it will boot fine. It will Boot to "Boot Option #1" which is "Windows Boot Manager". When I plug in all 4 extra HD's I have no issues in the Bios until I switch them over to Raid. After I reboot and get into the BIOS again the only Boot Option has changed to "Boot Option #1" as "Windows Boot Manager (Samsung SSD 950 Pro 512GB)". This is where it goes bad, windows can't find that partition. It took a while to realize it was changing the name of the Boot Option. If I recall it was opposite on the Win 7 build. It showd the names opposite and the "Windows Boot Manager" was unable to load. That is the issue, I can't boot to windows because there is no partition with that name. Maybe I can change it somewhere, I am not sure.


Also I do have the 950 Pro HD into the M2H_32G M.2 connector. Which states I can use all the SSD ports except for the SATA3_5 slot. I do not have anything plugged into the SATA3_5 slot.


Side question, it says I can't use SATA3_5 if I am using the PCIe x4 SSD for Hard Drives. Can I use it for a CD ROM or is it unavailable all together while using the M.2 drive.

Other then this I am having no issues with the MB.


Thanks for any help or suggestions.


-Craig

[Fact11]

Re: GA-Z170X-Gamming GT MB changes boot partition name after switching to RAID

Hi Craig,

You can't just simply switch from AHCI to RAID in the bios, if you have already installed Windows in AHCI mode. It will not boot as you have discovered.

What you need to is the following :

1) Change it back to AHCI and then Windows 10 will boot up normally again.
2) Once your in Windows, then go to Settings, then Update & Security, then Recovery.
3) Then under Advanced Startup, click on restart. Then select Troubleshoot, then Advanced Options, then Startup Settings, then Restart.
4) As it is rebooting, go back into the bios before Windows starts and change it from AHCI to RAID, then save and exit and let it reboot again.
5) Then Windows will start up in Recovery mode with a menu - choose Safe Mode and let it get to the desktop.
6) Then simply restart Windows again and this time it will reboot in Normal mode and will boot up fine with Sata being set to Raid.
7) Then go back into the bios and create whatever Raid you want with your 4 x 2TB drives.

Also you cannot use the Sata3_5 ports at all, when using an M.2 PCIE drive, not even for a CD ROM, as it is still a SATA device.

For your Windows 7 setup with 950 Pro, you need to provide the Samsung NVME driver during installation - here is the link for it. But to be honest Windows 10 is way better than Windows 7.

Samsung NVME Driver - Samsung SSD Downloads | Samsung SSD

Hope that helps.

[CR_Michigan]

Re: GA-Z170X-Gamming GT MB changes boot partition name after switching to RAID

Hello Fact11,

I really thought this was going to work. I looked into ACHI and Raid and it seems to get this fixed you would need to get your computer into Safe Mode while the BIOS is set to Raid. Your suggestion got me the furthest but it still does not work.

Following your process, I get to the point where I change to Raid in the BIOS and then it does get to the Recovery Mode where I can choose Safe Mode. I do choose Safe Mode and it sits there for a while and finally the "inaccessible_Boot_Device" comes up. I tried several times and it would hang there each time. Each time I change it back to ACHI it does boot normally.

Now I was thinking to just start over and reformat but this time start with Raid in the BIOS. At first during instillation only the non M.2 SSD's were recognized while in Raid. I removed the power from the drives and started over with only the 950 Pro M.2 drive plugged in and it is not recognized as a drive I can put a partition on. It did show up when I was in ACHI mode but not in Raid mode.

I did find the "Windows Boot Manager" in the registry. In the past with a similar problem on Win XP if we changed the name in the registry to what I needed to change it to, in this case "Windows Boot Manager (Samsung SSD 950 Pro 512GB)". This might fix the issue but would blow everything out if it does not work.

The other option I started thinking was to load win 10 to one of the drives and use the Samsung tool again to move the partition over to the M.2 drive. I think this may work. I have a back up file saved and I plan on restoring my partition once I can get it booting to the 950 Pro in Raid mode. Unless somehow this may not be supported.

Please let me know what you think and thank you for the help.

Thank you,

-Craig

[CR_Michigan]

Re: GA-Z170X-Gamming GT MB changes boot partition name after switching to RAID

Hello,

Just as a follow up on this if anyone else has this issue.

I was able to fix my issue by following these steps:

1. I set my BIOS to Raid and not AHCI
2. I installed Win 10 to one of my 2 TB WD drives that did show up as a place to load the operating system.
3. I erased the 950 Pro drive of all partitions since I already was using it as a primary partition. I had trouble erasing the protected partitions until I found the Diskpart command utility. I had to Diskpart Clean the partition I was using. I don't remember the exact commands but figured it out with the "?" after I started the program.
4. After some updates I used the Samsung Data Migration Software (Samsung SSD Downloads | Samsung SSD) to move the image from my WD HD to my 950 Pro HD. This worked without any issues to my complete relief. I am guessing if Samsung is providing this utility I am not the only person who has run into this issue.
5. After moving over I restated going into BIOS on the next boot and turned my 4 WD HD's into a Raid 10 configuration. This worked with no issues in the Bios. I was worried because the BIOS now showed 2 boot drives and they had the same name. I will try to resolve that issue later. I let it boot into the one it was suggesting without input from me.
6. On next boot I was able to do a simple format on the Raid 10 drive within Windows.

So far I have no issues with this setup. Thanks for the help in steering me towards the Raid vs. AHCI problem Fact11. I would not have figured that out on my own in a short time.

Now to get everything migrated over.

Running into this issue is one of the reasons I still enjoy putting these systems together. I do learn a lot along the way.

Thank you,

-Craig

[Fact11]

Re: GA-Z170X-Gamming GT MB changes boot partition name after switching to RAID

Hi Craig,

Glad to see you resolved your issue, but something just isn't right with your setup, because you shouldn't need to do all those steps to install Win 10 on the 950 Pro, regardless whether its in AHCI or RAID.
The Samsung Migration tool is there to migrate data across from one drive to another, but it wasn't created to rectify the issue you are having. You should be able to install Win 10 on the 950 Pro directly.
I'm wondering if the reason why it's not seeing the 950 Pro drive in Raid, during the Win 10 install, is maybe because you have it plugged into the M2H slot instead of the M2D slot, which is technically the first M.2 slot in the order of the things.

I have the Z170 SOC board and it has 3 x M.2 slots and I have 3 x 950 Pro drives in them, and am not experiencing the issue of Win 10 not seeing the 950 Pro drive during install, it actually sees all three M.2 drives and lets me choose which one I want to install on.
I know you have already got it working as you described, but you should try moving the 950 Pro drive to the M2D instead of the M2H slot and see if it then sees the drive properly.
Another thing you could try, is download and update the latest Beta bios for your board - F6c, and see if it recognises the drive as its meant too.

Link - http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte...beta-bios.html

The only reason I'm suggesting all this, is because your board is not operating as it should, and even though you have found a workaround, you don't know if that's going to cause problems down the track if something goes wrong with your install and then trying to recover it, may not work as hardware wise, things aren't working as they should.

Also be aware, as I have experienced, that for some reason still unknown, that whenever you do a bios update on your board, or reset it back to factory defaults, which a bios update does do, it stuffs up the Raid configuration in your bios and one or more drives in the Raid array, then become a non member drive.
The only way to then fix it, is to delete the corrupted Raid and recreate it and install everything back on it. There is a tool called TestDisk, that is meant to be able to recover a corrupted Raid, but it didn't work on my Gigabyte Z170 SOC Force and I dare say it won't work on any of the new Z170 boards, as the last update came out prior to Z170 being released.
So keep that in mind and make sure you have a full backup of your Raid drive, before doing any bios updating or resetting, or even trying to do some overclocking, because when you overclock and if you push it too far, the bios can sometimes either just reset itself due to over the top settings, or in the case of Dual Bios, if the overclock settings corrupt the bios,
it will simply load up the backup bios to the main bios automatically and then it gets reset and corrupts your raid configuration.

Just one more thing to check, which I'm assuming you are aware of, but incase you aren't, when you do have it in Raid mode and then during the Win 10 install, when it gets to the part about asking you which drive to install on, you do know that you have to load the Intel RST Raid driver at that point, for it too see the drives, regardless of whether or not they are in a Raid array or just still as standalone drives.
If you do not load the Intel RST Raid driver, then you will not see the drives.

Cheers.

[CR_Michigan]

Re: GA-Z170X-Gamming GT MB changes boot partition name after switching to RAID

Hello Fact11,

I think you may be right. I notice the BIOS still does not recognize the 950 Pro drive in the BIOS. I can see it as a non raid drive in the raid folder but nowhere else. I also tried to use one of Samsung's programs for the drive (Samsung_Magician_setup_v49) and it would not start eventually with an error message stating the drive did not respond in time.

I will try using the M2D connection again. The reason I don't like the M2D slot is because SATA 0-3 are disabled when using the PCIe x 4 SSD. This would only leave me with 2 SATA slots for setting up Raid. At this time 2 may be better then none. I will give that a try.

I will also give the beta driver F6c a try. Maybe it helps with this issue.

Thanks for the heads up on the changing of the BIOS and and loosing a Raid drive. I will have to remember to back up everything before I do changes.

I will also look into the Intel RST driver. I think that may be a contributor.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

-Craig

[CR_Michigan]

Re: GA-Z170X-Gamming GT MB changes boot partition name after switching to RAID

Hello,

OK, now I am a little depressed. I have discovered if the MB does not recognize the 950 Pro (m.2) drive neither will the Samsung programs that manage that drive. So I am guessing it is running as a SSD and not NVMe (the only reason I bought this MB was to use the NVMe).

I loaded the beta BIOS with the F6c and that did not help. What I am learning is if the BIOS does not recognize the 950 pro then Windows will not either. I tried to extract the Samsung driver for the 950 pro (from the .exe driver) to use that for the driver to recognize the driver when Win 10 is loading but I could not figure out how to do that.

The reason I am depressed is because this is ending up being a driver issue instead of a user issue. It is now clear to me if the BIOS does not recognize Samsung 950 Pro then Win 10 will not either. And trying work arounds will not fix that but will infact hurt that as I have crashed several times already. Guessing this is the issue.

I think if I can find a driver to load during the first steps of Win 10 I might beat this. I looked up the MS NVMe driver and other drivers but I could not find a suitable driver for those. But at the end of the day if the Gigabyte MB does not recognize the NVMe drive in Raid mode neither will windows. The MB does recognize the NVMe drive in AHCi mode though.

I think I am stuck. Has anyone found a way for the Gigabyte GT Motherboard to discover the NVMe HD in Raid mode? If so please let me know. I am stuck and my work arounds are already proving to have issue. I have crashed several times this evening trying other tricks with the HW or trying to backup.

Since this is already my primary computer and I need to perform other functions I will probably put it back to AHCI soon. This is disappointing because I don't think there is a workaround for this.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

-Craig

[Fact11]

Re: GA-Z170X-Gamming GT MB changes boot partition name after switching to RAID

Hi Craig,

From what you have written, I don't think you have properly read what I wrote, because I explained to you why you are not seeing your drives in raid. I don't understand why you are looking for an MS NVME driver, because that will not work in RAID, nor will the Samsung NVME driver. They are both for AHCI mode only and the MS NVME driver is part of Windows 10 anyway.

You seem to be all over the place, changing direction too quickly and are not concentrating on one issue at a time.

I highly recommend you try the following to determine if things are working as they should :

Prior to starting the following steps - download the Intel RST Raid driver from the link - I'm assuming you have 64 bit Win 10 - so download the file called - "f6flpy-x64.zip", and then extract the zip and put the files on a usb drive.

Intel RST Raid Driver - Windows 10 - https://downloadcenter.intel.com/dow...ST-RAID-Driver


1) Turn off your pc and unplug all the 2TB drives and just leave the Samsung 950 Pro connected.
2) Clear your CMOS/Bios and reset it back to factory defaults.
3) Go into your bios and change the following only :
a) Windows 8/10 Features - set to Windows 8/10
b) CSM Support - set to Disabled
c) Sata Configuration - set to Raid
4)Save Bios settings and reboot.
5)Boot up from your Windows 10 install DVD or USB drive and proceed with doing a fresh install of Windows 10
6)When it gets to the part of asking you which drive you want to install Windows on, the window should be blank and have no drives.
7) Insert your USB drive that contains the Intel RST Raid driver you downloaded and then select Load Driver, then click on Browse and go to the folder that has the Intel RST driver files from the Zip you extracted.
8)Click ok and then the Windows install will load the driver and after a bit of scanning, will the display the 950 Pro drive in the drive selection window. If there is any partitions on it, use the delete button to remove everything so it is then a blank drive and then proceed to install Windows 10 on it.
9) After the install completes you will have a proper functioning bootable Windows 10 system drive. Then install the Intel RST Raid Application, which can be downloaded from the same link above and is called "SetupRST.zip"
10)Once you have fully installed all the drivers for your board in Windows, then shut down, plug your 2TB drives back in and then go back into the bios and then go into the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Raid Controller and setup the Raid for the 2TB drives.
11) Save and reboot into Windows 10 and you will see your raid drive in Disk Manager and the Intel RST Raid Application.

That above procedure is the way things should be working on your board.