Apple SSD as Windows boot drive

BIOS/UEFI Modding BIOS Modding Guides and Problems
1

Hello guys,
I recently purchased an adapter to fit an Apple SSD (128GB) from a 2014 MacBook Air (Model: A1466) onto a PCI-e slot on my old Asrock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 motherboard.
The drive is connected via the adapter to a 4x PCI-e slot on the motherboard and uses AHCI (not NVMe). I tried to install Windows 10 onto the drive, which successfully completes, but after the setup, when Windows reboots the PC, I get an error that the drive could not be found. This seems to be normal, as the motherboard (with stock BIOS 2.31) doesn’t support booting from PCI-e drives.
Now, I already read through some threads here on this forum and I know that I have to add a BIOS module to support booting from a PCI-e drive, but I don’t know which one.
The only one that I found that enables booting from an AHCI drive was the SAMSUNG_M2_DXE module, but I don’t think that one will work with the Apple SSD?

Adapter (Link): Amazon

Drive:

I would really appreciate if someone could help me out, or tell me if this is even possible at all?

2

@penny_xp :
Welcome to the Win-RAID Fotum!

AFAIK the only third party EFI BIOS module, which supports booting off M.2/PCIe connected SSDs with an in-box AHCI Controller, is the SAMSUNG_M2_DXE.ffs one. Maybe it will work with your Apple SSD as well (it doesn’t depend on the manufacturer of the SSD, but on the manufacturer of the AHCI Controller, which is within the Chip of the SSD).
The download link to the Samsung AHCI EFI module can be found >here<.

Good luck!
Dieter (alias Fernando)

3

Thank you Fernando,
That doesn’t sound bad, as there is a Samsung chip on the SSD (although I don’t know if this is the AHCI controller chip).
I will try inserting the module and report back as soon as I have news.

4

Everything works as expected after inserting the SAMSUNG_M2_DXE module!
Note: After the BIOS update with the modified BIOS, the Apple SSD showed up in the Boot options, but the Windows Installation USB drive disappeared. After a CMOS reset it showed up again and I could start the Windows 10 installation.

Thanks again Fernando. :slight_smile: