# Can this motherboard boot from a PCIe SSD?



## chctulc (Jun 6, 2020)

I have this motherboard in one of my machines.  It is now booting off a SATA 3.5" SSD in UEFI mode.  I would like to use an M.2 expansion card like this to boot from a PCIe SSD instead. Is that possible? How would I know if I could boot from PCIe?


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## jaiq (Jun 6, 2020)

I have an even older Asus board (ATX Z77-M), and it did work with Clover bootloader, which you can burn to a spare USB stick. In my case, MB's BIOS update was also needed.

Guide:
https://www.win-raid.com/t2375f50-G...r-UEFI-BIOS-Clover-EFI-bootloader-method.html


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## chctulc (Jun 6, 2020)

jaiq said:


> I have an even older Asus board (ATX Z77-M), and it did work with Clover bootloader, which you can burn to a spare USB stick. In my case, MB's BIOS update was also needed.
> 
> Guide:
> https://www.win-raid.com/t2375f50-G...r-UEFI-BIOS-Clover-EFI-bootloader-method.html


Thank you  for your reply.  You have that same card?  Is your board UEFI or (legacy) BIOS?  I'm really not savvy enough to go too deep into the weeds technically.  Pop it in and go...


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## Caring1 (Jun 6, 2020)

Buy it and try it.
The worst that can happen is you end up with extra storage and not a boot drive.
From memory NVME was supported natively from 5th Gen CPU's and boards, yours is 4th Gen, but that doesn't mean it won't work.
Just remember to remove all other drives when installing Windows.


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## chctulc (Jun 7, 2020)

Caring1 said:


> Buy it and try it.
> The worst that can happen is you end up with extra storage and not a boot drive.
> From memory NVME was supported natively from 5th Gen CPU's and boards, yours is 4th Gen, but that doesn't mean it won't work.
> Just remember to remove all other drives when installing Windows.


Ya know...  at that price, you're right.    I have several other builds.  Somewhere down the road it may find a home if it doesn't boot on this machine.


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## agent_x007 (Jun 7, 2020)

I'm pretty sure (for B85), booting won't work unless you mod it into your BIOS...


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## chctulc (Jun 7, 2020)

agent_x007 said:


> I'm pretty sure (for B85), booting won't work unless you mod it into your BIOS...


Is there anything that is plug and play that would allow me to use an M.2 SSD with that board?  PCIe or SATA, I don't care.


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## agent_x007 (Jun 7, 2020)

Plug and play ?
This isn't Windows 98 
You could simply ask someone to mod BIOS for you, you know ?
Also it can be used like any normal drive, you simply won't be able to boot from it.

And, like it was mentioned before, Clover and DUETwill be able to boot from it, once you set them up.


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## kapone32 (Jun 7, 2020)

Though you won't get full throughput any PCIe based NVME adapter should work with that board. The board BIOS may not recognize it but Windows should have no issue importing it initializing it alllowing for a quick format and away you go.


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## chctulc (Jun 7, 2020)

kapone32 said:


> Though you won't get full throughput any PCIe based NVME adapter should work with that board. The board BIOS may not recognize it but Windows should have no issue importing it initializing it alllowing for a quick format and away you go.


The board has a UEFI (BIOS).  Does that mean anything for booting from the NVME PCIe adapter?  Just curious.


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## dont whant to set it"' (Jun 7, 2020)

Maybe try installing without fast boot, that's what I did and only thereafter I turned Fastboot on.
Nvme drive in mb slot linked to CPU in my case.


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## dorsetknob (Jun 7, 2020)

Install Nvme Drive into Adapter
install adapter into PC.
Remove/disable all other Drives
Boot PC into Bios
Check boot disk Boot order to see if its there.
if it is then you can install win10 and boot from it
if it dont show   then it is recognized by win 10 after booting from a bootable Drive and then its just plain Storage.


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## jaiq (Jun 7, 2020)

I don't know if I was lucky or what, but I did get full speed with 1TB Samsung 970 Evo in an Icy Box M2 card, coupled with MB's only Pcie gen 3 slot. I use it as my server, so I don't need a speedy dGPU anyways... I have used the same card on my MSI gaming laptop and benchmarks showed similiar results.
As someone pointed out, there is a possibility to modify BIOS permanently, but only for a driver being loaded, it's too much of a hassle. There's almost no way you could mess things up with a external bootloader.
I'd say it will work fine, but I can't remember which settings I chose in the BIOS, as It took some time for me tinkering. The main stumbling stone for me was to get the USB bootable correctly (EDIT: i believe it was because of an outdated BIOS). 
Unfortunately, I can't reach the computer right now, but everything I needed back then is shown in the thread I linked.


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## chctulc (Jun 7, 2020)

I'll report back on my results when I get the adapter.  Thanks for all the wisdom imparted here.  Maybe some of it will stick


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## chctulc (Jun 9, 2020)

Just thought I'd check back and tell you folks the result.  Looks like most of you all were right.  UEFI BIOS doesn't see the drive, but once in Windows 10, it shows up like a normal drive. So I guess there was no NVMe logic even in the latest BIOS update for the board.  Anyway, thank you all for helping me thru this.  I learned a lot.


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