[Guide] How to get M.2/PCIe connected Samsung AHCI SSDs bootable?

Me personaly I think that it is rather b) because the SM951 was never shown in BIOS or Bootmenu from the beginning.
But could you explain method a) a bit further? And in this case what do I have to look for to not damage the Boot Manager on the SM951 again while formating?

As all other users of a Samsung SM951 you will never see the name "Samsung SM951" within the BIOS, because you cannot boot into this SSD in LEGACY mode. All bootable disks running in UEFI mode are listed with the exact same name "Windows Boot Manager". So you have to find out yourself, which bootable disk is meant by the name "Windows Boot Manager".

No formatting is needed. The tool named EasyBCD is able to see all boot sectors of your system, to change the boot priority and to repair an existing, but not working Windows Boot Manager.
You can try the tool without any risk as long as you don’t change anything. The only risk I see is, that you may destroy your currently used boot sector by choosing a wrong setting. So be careful with any changes.

Ok, I just run it as administrator and then hit BCD Backup/Reparatur or something else?

Screenshot 2015-09-10 11.18.26.png

@ PatrickKoller:
This is what you can do:
1. Download and install the latest version of EasyBCD. It is v2.3 Beta Build 202.
2. Run the tool and hit the buttons “View Settings” and “Edit Boot Menue”.
3. If you don’t see any entry regarding drive G, you may hit the “Add New Entry” button and add it.

Warning: You will do it at own risk. I m not really sure, if EasyBCD really can modify the UEFI Bootloader.

hmmm, I don’t see the point in this. because when i restart i still must select a bootdevice in BOOT MENU (F8).
Only after I selected a bootable device from that page the next page with new created bootloader from EasyBCD is loaded…

So if I disconnect everything except the SM951 and reboot I can’t even reach the BCD bootloader!
Instead I get this message: “Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key.”

@ PatrickKoller:
If you should have changed the BCD settings by using EasyBCD (by adding a Boot Manager on drive G), you should not unplug the currently attached drives.
Then power on your computer, hit F8 and look, if there are now 2 "Windows Boot Manager" entries. If yes, choose one of them and look, what happens. If you are booting again into you currently used OS, reboot, hit F8 again and try the other option.

In my Boot Menu (F8) there is no such thing as a "Windows Boot Manager" entry.

It looks like this:

DSC00354.jpg

Then you obviously have disabled the UEFI Boot options within the BIOS.
As long as you don’t change the BIOS settings to "UEFI compatible" or "clean UEFI" (CSM disabled), the Samsng SM951 boot manager cannot be detected.


No that’s not true in my case! That picture was with "Boot device" -> "UEFI and Legacy"; PCI -> "UEFI first". When I set it to "UEFI only" or disable CSM completely in BIOS the BOOT MENU is empty!

As I said before: BIOS and BOOT MENU are not seeing the SM951.

These were the settings of the first picture:

DSC00355.jpg

And when I disable CSM or set it to UEFI only:

DSC00356.jpg



BOOT Menu looks like this:

DSC00357.jpg



When i click on "Setup" this happens:

DSC00358.jpg

@ PatrickKoller:
I am sorry, but I am out of the game, becauseI don’t have the time to continue it.
This is a test scenario, which is full of questions, hoping and guessing, what may happen.
Anyway it would be a good idea to have a permanently working Windows OS, which has been installed in UEFI mode and has a “Windows Boot Manager”. From within this OS running in the same mode as the OS, which has been installed onto the SM951, it may be possible to add resp. repair the boot sector of the SM951.

@Fernando
Thanks! I will try that and a few other things and hopefully it will work somehow…
Anyway, many thanks for all your help!!

Maybe I could ask you on more question?
Are the "Lan PXE OPROM" and "Power on by PCIE" Settings in BIOS relevant for this topic or can I forget about them?

Greetings!

AFAIK both modules are irrelevant for your desired purpose.

solution found for ssd pci express ahci and x79
i have the rampage IV extreme with xp941 bootable.
i found out that there are a lot of different version of samsung_m2_dxe.
if i use the one that are suggested in forums, it doesn’t work.
the only one that work comes from a modded bios created by asrock for one on their customer.
i attached it here, because it is the only one that works

SAMSUNG_M2_DXE.zip (3.62 KB)

@ xelanaiznac:

Welcome at Win-RAID Forum and thanks for having published your interesting find, which may help other users of a Samsung SM951 SSD to get it bootable.
Since the Samsung_ME.DXE module has nothing to do with the NVMe support, which is the topic of the other thread where you have posted the same, I propose to remove your post there. Your contribution there may be misleading for the users.

Regards and thanks again!
Dieter (alias Fernando)

thank you fernando for all your efforts.
i have deleted the post in the other thread as you suggested! sorry for the mistake

EDIT by Fernando: Unneeded parts of the quoted text removed (to save space)

Thanks!

@ PatrickKoller:
What do you think about testing the Samsung_M2_DXE module, which has been posted by xelanaiznac?
If this module should work better for your X79 system than the currently inserted module, I will offer this new Samsung M.2 module within the "BIOS Modules" section of the Forum.

@ felix, @ MacGyverSG1, @ tasate, @ tectown, @ Menshawi82, @ PatrickKoller, @ xelanaiznac, @lordkag :

Since there are a lot of threads about the Samsung SM951 within different sections of the Forum, I have tried to merge all posts, which belong to the topic “How to get a Samsung SM951 M.2 SSD (AHCI variant) bootable” into this new thread.
Furthermore I have renamed >this< thread, which is situated within the “System Performance” section of the Forum, from “Discussion on Samsung SM951 M.2 Card” to “[Discussion] Performance of the Samsung SM951 M.2 SSD AHCI variant”.

I hope, that this is ok for you all.
If I should have done any mistake or forgotten to move some posts, which would better match this thread, please let me know it.

Kind regards
Dieter



Thank you so much for posting this. I tried quite a few times on my Asus Z87 Maximus VI Gene bios and could never get the 951 to show in the bios. This X79 module did the trick.

@ dwaleke:

Welcome at Win-RAID Forum and thanks for your report!

Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)