Boot via PCIe slot

[o8v2q156b02e2]

Hi,
I use mobo MS7996 H110 PRO-VH 1151 serial no. G116426438 v.1.0, and I would like to connect a SSD M2.NVMe 2.0 hard disk onto PCIe 3.0 X16 slot, via Axagon Pci-e 3.0 X16 - M2 Ssd Nvme adapter. Bios version is E7996IMS.230, Build date 11/5/2015.
Please advise if this version of bios can boot my PC from that PCIe expansion slot.
Thanks in advance

 

[citay]

You have the board H110M PRO-VH, i think. Then first, update to the latest BIOS version v2H from here: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/H110M-PRO-VH/support

Update how-to:
1) Get the latest BIOS. It's the topmost one on the MSI support page for your board.
2) Extract the file and you will get a text file and the BIOS file. Put the BIOS file into the root folder of a USB stick/drive.
3) Enter the BIOS by pressing DEL during boot, go to "M-FLASH" in the BIOS.
4) Once M-Flash (the updater) is loaded, it will show a list of your drives. Select the USB stick and select the previously extracted BIOS file on there.
5) It will ask for confirmation and then update the BIOS. It's fully automatic from there, takes about two minutes.

Then you have to use the correct settings to make it work, which on this board, should be something like such:
Under Settings\Advanced\Windows OS Configuration -> Set Win 8.1/10 WHQL Support to [Enabled], Win7 to [Disabled]
Under Settings\Advanced\Integrated Peripherals, set SATA mode to [AHCI]
Under Settings\Boot, any Fast Boot options to [Disabled]
Under Settings\Boot\"Boot Mode Select", set [UEFI]
Under Advanced\PCIe Subsystem, set Above 4G to [Enabled]

I cannot guarantee that it works then, but on 100-series chipset boards it should definitely be possible. For example i had a Z170 board with an onboard M.2 slot and i could install and boot Windows on there.

 

[o8v2q156b02e2]

Hi,
Thank you Citay. Yes, that is the board I have. I'll follow your instructions as soon as I replace my PSU which has issues, and I'll let you know.
Much obliged.

 

[o8v2q156b02e2]

Hi, Citay
It took me a while to gather all necessary components. The new disk is a Samsung SSD 990PRO and the adapter is an Axagon PCEM2-1U PCIe 3.0 16X-M.2 SSD NVMe. I followed your instructions very carefully, but unfortunately Bios could not detect the new disk, while OS (Win 11) does.
Somehow, I managed to clean install Win 11 on the new disk, then restarted to see how it behaves. To my greatest surprise, I got a blue screen saying there are two Win 11 in the system: Win 11, volume 2 and Win 11, volume 6. Select one of them. To cut a long story short, vol 2 refers to new disk and vol 6 refers to the old disk. Both options work fine. Next, checked to see in the Disk Management what partitions were created. I was amazed to see that on the new disk (E) there are only 2 partitions: Basic Data Partition and Recovery Partition, while on the old disk (C) there are 4 partitions: EFI, Unallocated, Basic Data and Recovery. Restarted several times and I always had to choose between vol 2 and vol 6. That was very annoying.
This morning I decided to disconnect the old disk, just to see what the system will do. It just entered the Bios menu to force me setting a bootable devise. There was nothing in there to set and restarted the pc. Now, the two option (vol 2 and vol 6) were gone and it always boots on the old disk, ignoring completely the OS on the new disk.
Well, thanks anyway for helping me.
Best regards
Spyros

 

[citay]

I was amazed to see that on the new disk (E) there are only 2 partitions: Basic Data Partition and Recovery Partition, while on the old disk (C) there are 4 partitions: EFI, Unallocated, Basic Data and Recovery. Restarted several times and I always had to choose between vol 2 and vol 6. That was very annoying.

Whenever you install Windows, it's important to only have the SSD installed that you want to put Windows on. If you leave the old drive in the PC as well for the Windows installation, sometimes the Windows installer can get confused, and it puts the so-called bootloader ("Windows Boot Manager") on the old drive, and only the actual Windows files on the new drive. Then, when you take out the old drive, the bootloader isn't there anymore, and the BIOS cannot give control to the bootloader to boot Windows.

This can be fixed afterwards, but it's a hassle to do so. The best thing would be to install Windows 11 freshly again, this time only having the new SSD installed, taking out the old one. Then, during the installation, delete all existing partitions on the new SSD, and press continue. It will then put everything onto the new SSD properly.

 

[o8v2q156b02e2]

That's it. Now everything works just fine. I can boot on PCI as specified. The bios added a second boot option under BBS Priorities.
Thanks again for your help.
Regards
Spyros

 

[citay]

Glad to help.

 

[o8v2q156b02e2]

Hi, Citay
I just noticed that the fresh installation of Windows created two Recovery Partitions of the same size and none Unallocated one. Is that normal?
Thanks
Spyros

 

[citay]

Usually nothing to worry about. You did delete all existing partitions during the fresh installation, right?

 

[o8v2q156b02e2]

Right! Took out the old drive and deleted partitions on the new drive during installation, as per your advise.
Thanks

 

[o8v2q156b02e2]

Hi, Citay
Sorry to bother you, but I have another question for you.
As you can see in the attached picture, part.jpg, in my post of July 29, I have now two drives C (the old one) and E (the new one), but with different partition layout.
I want to put the image of C onto E, without affecting its partition's layout.
In the process of transferring the image I get a message saying:

"All disks to be restored will be formatted and replaced with the layout and data in the system image. Are you sure you want to continue?"

That means that the E partition's layout will be replaced with C's. Is there any way to avoid that, because I wish to stick to the new drive's layout. Googling my issue couldn't find anything relative. Any ideas?
Thanks

 

[citay]

It probably depends a lot on the cloning software you use. You can try with Clonezilla (if you don't save it as an image file of the drive, but rather clone it directly) or with Macrium Reflect Free Edition, they might offer to clone just C:\ to E:\. I'm not 100% sure if it boots right away afterwards, it might depend on some entry which is unique and will not get cloned over, but that is probably fixable with bcdboot and some bootrec commands in the recovery console.