# Asus Z97-Pro (WiFi ac) not see my M.2 SSD drive



## trodas (Dec 18, 2015)

Guys and gals (?), I would certaily use some help / advices, on how to make my M.2 SSD device visible in bios of my new Asus Z97-Pro (WiFi ac) mainboard.

I bought this one recently, to get a new -QUIET- build for gaming and apart from 1T WD HDD & DVD-RW Samsung SH-224DB I get a 128G Samsung SM951 M.2 SSD drive. Upon inserting it into the mainboard:



 



...it is getting reasonably hot (especially the first chip - controller), so it should work, yet it fail to show up in the Z97-Pro bios at al. So I cannot partition the SSD, nor start installing Win7 on it.

...

I tried to set the setting in Advanced / PCH Storage Configuration - *SATA Express(SATAEXPRESS) and M.2 Configuration* to directly *M.2* instead of *Auto*, but still no help. SATA is in AHCI mode.

Then I on youtube looked at this video: 








...but altrought it surely help people with the Z97 Maximus VII mainboard to make the SSD visible in bios:
Advanced / Onboard Devices Configuration and change the setting of *PCI Express X4_3 Slot (Black) Bandwitch* from *Auto Mode* to *M.2 Mode*. However I did not find such option in my bios...

Also I noticed this thread:
http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthrea...xtreme-M-2-Setup-And-Windows-Installation-FAQ

...but this is, once again, about different mainboard - about Rampage V Extreme 

So, a little help would go a long way there... Thanks!


PS. Looks like I'm not alone:
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View...e+the+Asus+Z97+Pro+M.2+device+boot,+any+ideas


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## puma99dk| (Dec 18, 2015)

Try looking under Advanced --> PCH Storage Configuration u should find SATA Express(SATAEXPRESS) and M.2. Configuration like shown in this screen, i hope it helps ^^


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## Athlon2K15 (Dec 18, 2015)

Which SM951 did you get, AHCI or NVME?


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## puma99dk| (Dec 18, 2015)

AthlonX2 said:


> Which SM951 did you get, AHCI or NVME?



Good question, i think the NVME is required for OS use if i don't remember wrong.


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## Athlon2K15 (Dec 18, 2015)

the NVME drive isnt compatible with all motherboards, vendors have to deliberately add support for it. AHCI should boot on all boards with m.2


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## RejZoR (Dec 20, 2015)

Does Z97 even support anything other than M.2 SATA ? I'm too lazy to Google. Because my X99 on the other hand doesn't even support M.2 SATA...


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## trodas (Dec 21, 2015)

*puma99dk|* - 





> Try looking under Advanced --> PCH Storage Configuration u should find SATA Express(SATAEXPRESS) and M.2. Configuration like shown in this screen, i hope it helps ^^



Tried that already. No Auto, no M.2 selection makes any difference. Perhaps helps update of the bios, yet sadly I hit another problem there:
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/asus-z97-pro-wifi-ac-bios-update-fail.218547/



> Good question, i think the NVME is required for OS use if i don't remember wrong.



Hopefully you remember that wrong, I want to use it for OS, of course.




*AthlonX2* - 





> Which SM951 did you get, AHCI or NVME?



The M.2 SSD is Samsung SM951 (MZ - HPV1280) 128G with s/n: S1X3NYAG800954. That should be the more compatible, yet slightly slower, AHCI one.



> the NVME drive isnt compatible with all motherboards, vendors have to deliberately add support for it. AHCI should boot on all boards with m.2



True. But still, mine is AHCI and it should be working. While it is not...



*RejZoR* - 





> Does Z97 even support anything other than M.2 SATA ? I'm too lazy to Google. Because my X99 on the other hand doesn't even support M.2 SATA...



What do you mean? Support for NvME was added in bios version 2303:
http://www.asus.com/cz/Motherboards/Z97PROWiFi_acUSB_31/HelpDesk_Download/

But maybe the M.2 SSD type is unclear, after reading this:
http://www.samsung.com/cz/news/local/the-new-pcie-ssd-samsung-sm951-is-extremely-fast-and-economical

...that looks like I was tried to flash wrong bios. Wait... that might be the cause...


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## trodas (Jan 5, 2016)

I installed the Win7 install on USB stick, removed all other devices, but no luck. It does NOT see the drive at all...

Asus support tell me, that they ONLY support the M.2 SSDs, mentioned in this pdf:
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb...B_31/Z97-PRO-WiFi-AC-USB31_Devices_Report.pdf

Therefore only supported (according to Asus) M.2 SSDs in Asus Z97-Pro(WiFi ac/USB 3.1 mainboard are:

*Apacer*:  T60 A200-M 128G
*Intel*:  530 SSDSCKGW080A401 80GB
*Liteon*:  LITEON-LGT-256M6G-2280-256GB
*Kingston*:  RBU-SNS6100S3/128GC-2260-128GB and RBU-SNS6100S3/256GC-2260-256GB
*Sandisk*: X110-2260-128GB and X110-2260-256GB
*Samsung*:  MZ-NPD1280-2280-128GB (Support on ISRT 13.1)

None of these SSDs are particulary interesting in terms of speed...


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## mendesjunior (Feb 3, 2022)

I know this post is old, but looking for a solution to the same problem and motherboard, I found this post.
I was only able to solve my problem of not recognizing my Kingston NV1 SSD drive by doing a Bios update.
The version I was on was 1202, and I updated it to 2205.
It recognized my NV1 SSD instantly.

An observation. This board model has a version called: Z97-PRO(Wi-Fi ac)/USB 3.1 and other: Z97-PRO. Firmware is different!


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