MSI Z97 Gaming 7 and MyDigitalSSD M.2 NVMe SSD

[carbontwelve]

So I have an MSI Z97 Gaming 7 motherboard that came with bios version 1.6 and have been happily running it since 2014; I recently bought a 240GB M.2 NVMe SSD by MyDigitalSSD to install as my main operating system drive and while windows is aware that the drive exists; when I go into the motherboards bios it can tell me everything attached to USB ports and all connected SATA drives, it is unable to see the M.2 SSD.

 

I was wondering if anyone else was running these two components together and would be able to let me know if updating the BIOS will enable it showing the drive; I have yet to attempt to install any operating system on it, but I am assuming that if the BIOS is unable to tell me it exists, it will be unable to let me boot from it - the research I did before buying the M.2 drive did highlight that the motherboard supports booting from PCIe M.2 drives.

[jools]

if m2 is seen in windows, maybe try cloning OS to new drive m2 drive....then try unplugging old OS drive and see if boots from m2

[jools]

fyi

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=266089.0

mainly talks about only x2 speed for z97 from m2 slot

[carbontwelve]

@jools thank you for that link, I was aware that it would only run with 2 PCIe lanes as opposed to 4, but that is still faster than SATA and the SSD drive was cheaper than others at the time time of purchase.

 

I'm going to try unplugging all other drives and seeing if I can install windows onto the M.2. If not I will update the BIOS - this didn't go well last time freezing at 18% but no damage was done and this motherboard comes with a backup BIOS, so no risk of bricking the board; the current BIOS version is from 2013/2014 and the latest is from 2016 and adds support for newer processors which I may upgrade to next.

[carbontwelve]

Just to help anyone else who lands here with a similar issue in the future, it looks like I may need to update the BIOS to at least version 1.8 to enable booting from NVMe drives: http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/msi-x99-z97-and-h97-motherboards-now-support-nvm-express-storage.html

[MajorMusician]

Hey, sorry to dredge up an old thread, I am wondering what luck you had in upgrading your system? I am running the same sort of setup and have been trying to decide between a 2.5" or a NVME m.2 drive. I was reading that the board might not be able to use the NVME system for PCIe transfer and would instead just revert the drive back to sata3 speeds. Did you ever find out if the board would use PCIe x2 and be bootable with a NVME drive? And if so what transfer speeds do you get when moving files from the HDD to the sata 2.5" SSD, from the sata 2.5" SSD to the m.2 drive, as well as moving from the HDD to the m.2 drive. Thanks a bunch in advance for any information you can lend.