Install and boot from M.2 using NVMe SSD

This may not help however I remember doing this by creating a USB recovery drive with the hard disk that was installed first (without the ssd installed). After that I installed the Windows OS while taking the old drive out. I remember it was a huge pain however not even close to the amount of frustration when I was trying to place Linux on the drive. I know separating the drives in all steps lead me much farther in the process of solving my issue. I wish I could be more help but I'm going off of what I can remember ~6 months ago with little to no sleep during that time. Also cloning the drive never worked. I would recommend against that route to save time. Fresh install is the best option to pursue.

Thanks for the input. I followed your same path, but when I disconnected the HDD the BIOS screen never loads. I also agree, fresh install is the way to go. I just don't know why the install dies at the very end.

So here is where I am currently. I removed the 512GB M.2 Samsung 950 Pro NVMe SSD drive. I bought an additional 1TB Samsung 850 Evo (Non M.2). Put it in and ran a fresh install. Failed at end of install just like the M.2 slot. Went back into the BIOS and set the ATA controller to AHCI. Install now successful on Evo.

Place the Pro back into the M.2 slot. Won't get past BIOS load screen. So the M.2 slot will not work unless the controller is set to RAID Mode period.

Go back to RAID Mode. Evo won't boot, won't repair. Remove everything but the Evo and boot to flash drive and install Windows 10 with controller set to RAID Mode. Install M.2 Pro and HDD and partition and format them as additional drives.

Apparently Dell doesn't support installing and then booting from the M.2 slot on the new Alienware Aurora R5 at this time. This is a shame because it is supported on the laptops. I've watched several videos where people successfully installed the Samsung 950 Pro NVMe M.2

BIOS version 1.0.4

Really interested in an answer here.  In the same boat as I just got my system, and struggling to self install 950 Pro.  I know Dell sells bootable m.2 drives factory install, so seems like there should be a solution here.

I've got a slightly different symptom whereby I can't see the drive in BIOS from boot, but if I boot from USB to install Win10, it shows as an option to install to, but flags an error and says cannot install to the drive.  If this is different and I need to start a new thread let me know.

Hi,

Let's try disabling the secure boot in the BIOS and then reinstall.

Remove the Samsung 950 Pro NVMe SSD drive, turn the system on and access the BIOS (F2) > Boot tab > Secure boot : disable it, save and exit. Then turn the system off and put the Samsung 950 Pro NVMe SSD back and try to install again.

Let me know how it goes!

@bstacer99 Yes they do offer M.2 drives, but they are not the NVMe type that gives you up to 32GBps theoretical. They are the older 6GBps SATA III. I will say in my current config I can Install Wiindows Server 2012 R2 GUI in 57 seconds using the 950 Pro as the drive where the VHDx files are stored. But alas its not my boot drive.

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 Thank you for responding. All attempts posted have been with secure boot off. Not even possible to do the things I've done with secure boot on.

@

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If I put the 950 Pro in any configurations other than RAID Mode the computer will freeze loading the BIOS screen. I have removed the 950 and thus the GTX 1080 over 100 times in every possible configuration possible. It will not work period. It works great as an additional drive, but you cannot install Windows on it nor boot from it.

@bstacer99 One more thing after rereading. Yes I had the same behavior. When I initially put the M.2 drive in the new computer the BIOS saw it. When I went to install from flash drive the bios showed "none", yet the installer could see the drive and let me delete the previous partitions and then install....  Only to fail at the end.

1) Unistalled the drive as instructed.

2) rebooted went to BIOS, turned off Secure Boot

3) installed 950 Pro

4) Booted, went to BIOS, did not see the m.2 drive listed  (took a screenshot I can send)

5) Saved Exited BIOS, let boot, can see the drive on device Manager.  Under Properties everything looks fairly normal, though not sure if I should be looking for anything.  It is using the MS driver. (Screenshot)

6) Rebooted and let it come all the way up as during shutdown it looked like Windows was updating.

7) Rebooted and went to Boot Options, booted from USB Key.  

8) Drive showed up to install on, no errors this time.  Windows fully installs

9) It says it needs to perform a restart, tries to Boot, but comes up with Recovery Screen.  Missing file "File:\Window\system32\winload.efi"    "Error code 0x0000225" (Took another Screenshot) it auto-powered off.

10) Booted and went to BIOS, M.2 not showing in the BIOS.

11) Saved and Closed and back to the recovery Screen.

12) On the recovery screen, tried the "Different OS" Option, and selected Volume 3 (there were two options) and it finished booting, but I feel like it was booted to the Spinning drive based on Speed and Size of the drive when I went to explorer page (OS was on C: and it was much bigger than the SSD Size.

13) Rebooted - recovery screen, tried it again but this time with Volume 7, it just tried to reboot and went back to the recovery screen.

Hopefully this level of detail helps.  I'm going to leave it in this state.  Let me know what you want me to try next.

"I was able to get a different PCIe NVME drive to work well in my system"

What specific drive worked?

Quick Update.  I was able to get a different PCIe NVME drive to work well in my system so seems it is something to do with the specific Samsung 950 Drive / Aurora R5 BIOS combination not playing well together.

Hi which one worked? did you get a card or just put it into existing slot?

Oh, I also used Casper to duplicate any drive storage.  It was worth paying the cost of the program.  It works awesome and has some really awesome features.  It was really, really helpful in transferring and duplicating my SSD data.

After combing many forums for several days and multiple attempts at windows install, I finally got my M.2 950 pro working as my boot drive.  I had to do a clean install of windows and in my bios I had to turn my SSD option from RAID to AHCI.  Once I booted I used the function key that would allow me to get to the screen as to where I can pick what I boot from.  At the bottom, there was an option on my Alienware 15 r2 as to where I could restart not using secure boot or legacy, once I did that I hit the function key selection again, made it boot from my usb boot drive, and within a few minutes, windows was installed and working wonderfully.  This laptop boots up up in about 6 seconds now with none of that hibernate/fast boot ***.  I keep my steam and origin accounts installed on the 950 and the other two SSD's installed in my computer keep either games I do not play as much or any miscellaneous items or storage.  Works fantastic.  It was absolutely worth all the time spent on this!

Alienware 15R2

I7-6700HQ

Samsung SSD M.2 950 Pro 256 GB

Samsung SSD 2.5 850 Pro 500 GB

Samsung SSD M.2 850 256 GB

GTX 970m

did anyone try the approach suggested by @wbc0609 on XPS 8910 desktop?

@bstacer99 can you please provide the name and model of the M.2 or PCIe NVMe you were able to use. I am in the same situation, not able to go pass boot screen with 950 PRO M.2