7

I'm building a brand new PC with an ASUS PRIME Z370-A motherboard and a Samsung SSD 970 EVO NVMe M.2 250GB.

However, my motherboard does not seem to be able to recognize the drive as the it neither shows up in UEFI nor in the Windows 10 Installer.

I tried installing it in the two M.2 sockets that the motherboard has:

  • M.2_1 socket supports PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA mode M KEY design and type 2242 / 2260 /2280 PCIe and SATA storage devices.
  • M.2_2 socket supports PCIe 3.0 x4 M KEY design and type 2242 / 2260 /2280 PCIe and SATA storage devices.

However, the drive is not recognize in either socket.

I also tried applying several configurations to the Compatibility Support Module and it still does not detect it.

UEFI setup photos:

UEFI Setup Photo 1

UEFI Setup Photo 2

¡UPDATE!

I had to take my pc to a technician and, from what I remember he did, put another ssd m.2 on the motherboard, he tried activating / deactivating options (the truth did not seem that he knew what each option does and it was something that I had also tried) and in some of those attempts, eureka! the disk was recognized and appeared in the UEFI configuration panel.

I wanted to know which of the options he activated was indicated for it to work. I restored the options to the factory state and the ironic thing was that ... the disc was still recognized by the mother card! It could have been that I did not fit the disc right into its socket, but I honestly made several attempts and even applied a lot of force that I feared damaging it.

An unsolved mystery. But the important thing is that it works.

David Ferreira
  • 181

4 Answers4

2

To see if you can make BIOS recognize your M.2. drive, you could try:
(note: You can see all the screenshots on this gist comment)

  • On the page under Advanced\Onboard Devices Configuration, you could fiddle with the settings: Hyper M.2X16, M.2_1 Configuration, M.2_2 PCIe Bandwidth Configuration: [X2][X4].
  • Try messing with the setting PCIe Speed on page Advanced\PCH Configuration\PCI Express Configuration.
  • Try disabling(or enabling? nah, probably not enabling!) Aggressive LPM Support from page Advanced\PCH Storage Configuration.
  • try updating your BIOS (screenshots say it's version 0616, newest is 1002) - be careful though, because after update all of your BIOS settings(even those saved in the profiles, but not those saved as files on some USB drive obviously) are lost and reset to BIOS defaults.

Other things you could try, temporarily:

  • Ensure ErP Ready is Disabled. When this is Enabled, it sets/enables other settings(on Advanced\Platform Misc Configuration page (see next screenshot), at least) which for me caused my USB keyboard/mouse to not be recognized in Linux(or memtest86; eg. any booted OS) due to something having entered low power mode (or something similar), in effect only BIOS would see them.
  • Ensure all on this page(Advanced\Platform Misc Configuration) are disabled, just to make sure your M.2. drive didn't somehow enter some state that's effectively put to sleep (although this should never happen while inside BIOS/GUI).
  • You could set POST Report to Until Press ESC (it's on Advanced under Boot\Boot Configuration) so that you can see what POST Screen says it detected, it would usually say something about the drives.
  • The Fast Boot setting probably has no effect on this, just thought I'd bring it up anyway.
  • Maybe you could check the screen under Advanced\PCH Storage Configuration where SATA devices can be Disabled, just to see if there's M.2. devices that can/are Disabled.
  • check Advanced\HDD/SSD SMART Information see if you can select your M.2 drive from the Device list. This helps to see if BIOS can see it.
  • Maybe you could mess with the DMI Max Link Speed setting that's on page Advanced\System Agent (SA) Configuration\DMI/OPI Configuration. I currently don't know what that setting is and if that's supposed to affect anything related to M.2.
  • you already tried disabling CSM(Compatibility Support Module) and didn't help (as per the comments on your question)

The following might apply, but, I believe that it first has to be recognized in BIOS: (though it may be possible for Linux to still detect it even if BIOS doesn't detect it, or maybe only if BIOS has it disabled, I'm unsure)

There's a Linux kernel commit (kernel git) authored and committed on 11 March 2018, that says:

nvme-pci: disable APST for Samsung NVMe SSD 960 EVO + ASUS PRIME Z370-A

Yet another "incompatible" Samsung NVMe SSD 960 EVO and Asus motherboard combination. 960 EVO device disappears from PCIe bus within few minutes after boot-up when APST is in use and never gets back. Forcing NVME_QUIRK_NO_APST is the only way to make this drive work with this particular motherboard. NVME_QUIRK_NO_DEEPEST_PS doesn't work, upgrading motherboard's BIOS didn't help either. Since this is a desktop motherboard, the only drawback of not using APST is increased device temperature.

So I'm guessing that the same happens with your drive: Samsung SSD 970 EVO NVMe M.2 250GB.

If you feel like recompiling Linux kernel, you could try booting any of the versions of the following kernel (which should contain this commit):

  • v4.17-rc1 - v4.19-rc2 And likely any non-rc versions too, so: 4.17, 4.18 and the not-yet-released 4.19 (so only -rc2 and -rc1 are available from this one).
    • See if lspci -nn shows your M.2 device by name followed by two hex numbers [vendor:device] (should start with [144d:XXXX]), then check if those numbers at the end of the line are a different value than [144d:a804] (that's the 960 EVO SSD they mention in commit). It probably means that the above commit/patch won't be in effect for your drive, but if you can recompile kernel you could add your device's [vendor:device] numbers to that if block, then see if the drive works; if it does, maybe also report it to kernel bugzilla so they can add it to that if block too.
JW0914
  • 9,096
0

Did you push it far enough into the socket?

I had a similar problem, and the solution was just to make sure to push the drive into the socket as far as it would go.

elchambro
  • 1
0

I had a similar issue, and the solution was to change the "OS type" to Windows 10 and also enable compatibility mode. IIRC, both of those options were within the boot menu.

BTW: my issue occurred after I flashed the bios to update it -- whatever settings I had before just got lost, so I was probably just restoring settings I'd previously had.

interestedparty333
  • 103
-2

See Asus FAQs. Troubleshoot with the following topic:

[Motherboard] Troubleshooting - Cannot find the hard disk drive or SSD(M.2) after motherboard powers on

A. Confirm the settings in BIOS

  1. Please try to update the latest version BIOS from ASUS official website. Please refer to this FAQ for more : [Motherboard] ASUS EZ Flash 3 - Introduction
  2. After the computer powers on, please immediately press 'delete' key on the keyboard to enter EZ Mode. Please confirm the information of the connected hard disk or SSD in Storage Information (Ex: PRIME B550-PLUS) (If the computer enters BIOS Advance Mode after you press 'delete', you can press 'F7' again to enter EZ Mode)

Note：For the old models (ex: TUF B450-PLUS GAMING) ,which use PCIE Mode M.2 SSD(including: NVME M.2), information of hard disk or SSD doesn't show in Storage Information in BIOS EZ Mode due to the framework of the BIOS. This phenomenon is normal, please be noted.

  1. Please enable [CSM] in BIOS:

a. After the computer powers on, please press 'delete' to enter EZ Mode, and then press 'F7' to enter Advanced Mode as below:

b. Click [Boot] - [Launch CSM]. Please set [Launch CSM] as [Enabled] as below:

c. Press 'F10' to save the BIOS setting, and click [OK] to reboot. Confirm whether the computer can recognize the hard disk or SSD

  1. If you have set CPU overclocking or Memory overclocking, the computer may not detect the hard disk or SSD due to overclocking instability. Please set BIOS to the default setting by the below steps:

a. After the computer powers on, please immediately press 'delete' key on the keyboard to enter EZ Mode (you can refer to the picture in step 2)

b. Press 'F5' to set the BIOS to default setting, then press 'F10' to save BIOS setting and click [OK] to reboot. Confirm whether the computer can detect the hard disk or SSD. 5. If the computer still can't detect the hard disk or SSD after you followed the above step 1~4, please confirm the hardware by below steps

B. Confirm the hardware

  1. Please try to replug Sata cable on the motherboard, and confirm Sata cable is correctly connected.
  2. Please try to replug Sata cable or power cable on the hard disk or SSD. Confirm Sata cable or power cable is correctly connected
  3. Please try another SATA port of the power supply
  4. Please replace with a good Sata cable without problem
  5. Please try to connect hard disk or SSD to anther Sata port of the motherboard
  6. Please replace with another power supply, and confirm whether the Sata cable of the power supply is abnormal
  7. If the connected SSD is M.2 SSD, please try to replug M.2 SSD. Confirm M.2 SSD is correctly connected and the M.2 screw is locked, as below:
  8. Please check user manual on ASUS Official Website. Confirm whether M.2 port supports

①, and confirm whether it is shared ② with other port

① M.2_1 port can support SATA mode and PCIE mode M.2_2 port can only support PCIE mode and can't support SATA mode. Therefore, if you connect SATA mode M.2 SSD to M.2_2 port, the computer can't recognize.

② M.2_1 port is shared with SATA6G_1 port. Therefore ,when connecting the device to the two ports, SATA6G_1 port will be closed. At this time, the computer can only recognize M.2 SSD in M.2_1 port, and it can't recognize the hard disk in SATA6G_1. If you need computer to recognize the hard disk in SATA6G_1，please connect Sata cable of SATA6G_1 port to other Sata port, such as SATA6G_3 or SATA6G_4

  1. If you still can't solve your problem with the above steps, the hard disk may have the physical damage or the SSD is damaged. Please try to replace with a properly working hard disk or SSD.
Morteza M
  • 9