Windows 10: Help, Windows 10 Pro not able to create install partition.

MiniTool Partition Wizard Free - especially the bootable USB/CD version:
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

Does everything you are currently needing.

 

Thanks for that information. If it does everything it promises, not only is it better than the Paragon software that I bought, but it should save me days of doing a clean install. I have to leave it for the weekend for now. I'll be back. *Wink

Ak

 

Hi,

Just curious, is there a technical explanation why a PCIe drive would boot when MBR but not boot when GPT?

TIA, *Wink

 

Dunno but I have a PCIe SSD and it boots both (I recently changed my windows install from mbr to gpt).

 

Well there is this:
EXCLUSIVE: Kingston HyperX Predator M.2 PCIe SSD Review (480GB) | The SSD Review

So, it would depend upon the boot ROM code contained on the PCI-e controller, not necessarily what the motherboard bios capability is.

 

Hi,

Thanks guys.
I still find this odd as this Samsung M2 drive is rather new on the market so I wonder if the M2 to PCIe adaptor would have anything to do with.
No idea if that would contain any electronics at all but I don't think so.
OTOH, that Kingston HyperX seems to have chips and caps on it though.



Anyway, thanks for the replies.

Cheers, *Wink

 

Hi,

The more I reread this the more I think that Windows was installed with the old drive in the system and online.
Should that be the case then I think Windows rebooted from the old install and handed over the operating system to the new one.
Removing the old drive then results in Windows no longer be bootable as it never actually booted from the new drive anyway.
As an example I have an USB external drive that I made bootable so when I select to boot from it through the bios boot menu (F12) it does exactly that.

Does that sound plausible to any of you ?

Best, *Wink



Does that sound plausible to anyone?

 

I hope it is plausible, since that is what I wrote in post #2

 

Hi,

LOL. Don't know how I overlooked that. Great minds and all that, right ?.

In the mean time I had a go at a few of this Samsung drive's reviews and from what I can tell it should be bootable (GPT and MBR) for as long as the MB and bios support it. Of course they refer to a straight M2 connection, not the PCIe to M2 one although that too should work if the machine supports booting from PCIe of course.

Cheers, *Wink

 

No, when I did the clean install to the Samsung 950 Pro, I had removed my system drive totally from the system. I do have three other drives in this server but none of them had the operating system. Windows 10 Pro installed to the Samsung 950 Pro for sure and all my applications were installed. When I ran the Samsung Magician software it showed about 2550MB/sec read and 1540 MB/sec write and there is no rapid mode for the 950 Pro yet. After about three days of installing I was very happy.

I ran into the MBR problem when I went to format one of the old WD hard drives which did have a backup of the system drive using Paragon software. When that was done this system would no longer boot. I put my old system drive back into the server and booted with that drive. The adapter card is an Asus deluxe Z170 mini M.2 X4 adapter. I am not sure what caused my problem, the drive, the adapter or the Paragon software. I have my suspicion about Paragon because it did need some updates.

I can use Samsung Magician to restore this SSD back to the factory defaults this weekend and then I should be able to do another clean install. I am not looking forward to that so I will try to see if I can convert the cloned drive from GPT to MBR using the MiniTool Partition Wizard first.

Ak

 

Hi,

Yeah.......M2 stands for Mach 2, right ? *Biggrin

That said I really hope you'll get this working as I'm also eyeballing that drive for one of my pcs.

Cheers, *Wink

 

I had it working great and I hope to get it working again soon. If I can't get it working I am looking at the ASRock Z97 Extreme/6 motherboard as a replacement for my Asus Maximus VI Hero motherboard, at least it has an ultra M.2 slot. I would not have to replace my CPU or memory.

It will be Mach 3 when Samsung allows rapid mode for this SSD. *Biggrin

Ak

 

Hi,

Looking at your benchmarks results I assumed you already had the drive in a PCIe Gen 3 slot ?
Naturally Asrock's solution would do away with the M2 to PCI adaptor which can't be a bad thing.

Cheers, *Wink

 

An M.2 PCIe drive needs the UEFI bios for the driver. So, install it as UEFI and things should be fine. I run an X99 in that configuration.

Otherwise, if you get the cannot install message, it may be one of two things. First, a Critical partition is already on the drive and the install cannot remove it. Secondly, if you need to convert a drive from GPT to MBR or MBR to GPT you need to remove all partitions on the drive.

I am sure this info has been mentioned in several of the prior posts, just wanted to confirm.

I always try to remove all extra drives to make sure there is no confusion as to where the boot files end up.

 

Hi,

IOW, it's more likely to work when the bios is set to UEFI and hence a GPT partition table. Thought as much.

Cheers, *Wink