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Thank you for your response. I do have a couple of questions:

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You said to use the M.2_2 (secondary) slot instead of the M.2_1 (primary) slot. Is that really what I should do? The secondary slot on this board stands perpendicular to the motherboard, and in my current configuration wouldn't fit with the other components installed--and it wouldn't look as good 😉

Where exactly is the setting for "AMI Native NVMe" support? Under the Advanced tab and under Onboard Device Configuration, I had the M.2_1 slot set to either Auto or PCIe (it also has a setting labeled "Teton Glacier" but I don't know what that is; a quick Google search indicated something related to Intel...)

I did create a new USB boot drive, since my old one was made several years ago. I didn't format it as GPT, I just did a full format in NTFS. The other settings (CSM and Fast Boot) I played around with because sometimes the SSD wouldn't show up in the BIOS/UEFI, and for a while it didn't show up in Windows (which is what it did initially). At the moment I have Fast Boot disabled, CSM disabled, another setting for Windows UEFI mode, and only two boot devices show up: the USB Windows installation drive, and my main Windows installation on my RAID array. Along the way I was able to brute force my way through a Windows install (it would keep BSOD-ing during the install process, and I would get a little farther until it finally completed). After it finally installed, I booted into it. Then when I tried to reboot the system to get back into it, it won't let me--just the same error screens I've been seeing all along. Here are the next things I'm considering:


Deleting my RAID array: I've been wondering if my RAID 0 array was causing a conflict, although I don't see how it would. I kept it so I could revert back to my regular Windows install in case I had problems, but I may delete it anyway and see what happens.

Reformat my Windows installation USB: this would be to ensure it's formatted under GPT, if it isn't already.

Anyway, I'm going to keep working this.

dantess wrote:
First of all, install the NVMe SSD on the M2_2 socket (see motherboard manual). Make a windows bootable usb stick under GPT mode with Media Creation Tool. You will start the BIOS in UEFI mode and disable CSM boot. Also, put Secure Boot on Windows UEFI mode, Fast Boot disabled and AMI Native NVMe support, on.
I hope that what I said above will help you!

• 
  

Thank you for your response. I do have a couple of questions:

• 
  

You said to use the M.2_2 (secondary) slot instead of the M.2_1 (primary) slot. Is that really what I should do? The secondary slot on this board stands perpendicular to the motherboard, and in my current configuration wouldn't fit with the other components installed--and it wouldn't look as good 😉

Where exactly is the setting for "AMI Native NVMe" support? Under the Advanced tab and under Onboard Device Configuration, I had the M.2_1 slot set to either Auto or PCIe (it also has a setting labeled "Teton Glacier" but I don't know what that is; a quick Google search indicated something related to Intel...)

I did create a new USB boot drive, since my old one was made several years ago. I didn't format it as GPT, I just did a full format in NTFS. The other settings (CSM and Fast Boot) I played around with because sometimes the SSD wouldn't show up in the BIOS/UEFI, and for a while it didn't show up in Windows (which is what it did initially). At the moment I have Fast Boot disabled, CSM disabled, another setting for Windows UEFI mode, and only two boot devices show up: the USB Windows installation drive, and my main Windows installation on my RAID array. Along the way I was able to brute force my way through a Windows install (it would keep BSOD-ing during the install process, and I would get a little farther until it finally completed). After it finally installed, I booted into it. Then when I tried to reboot the system to get back into it, it won't let me--just the same error screens I've been seeing all along. Here are the next things I'm considering:


Deleting my RAID array: I've been wondering if my RAID 0 array was causing a conflict, although I don't see how it would. I kept it so I could revert back to my regular Windows install in case I had problems, but I may delete it anyway and see what happens.

Reformat my Windows installation USB: this would be to ensure it's formatted under GPT, if it isn't already.

Anyway, I'm going to keep working this.

You said to use the M.2_2 (secondary) slot instead of the M.2_1 (primary) slot. Is that really what I should do?

That's what I did, used the M.2_2 slot.
The whole concept was the vertical orientation would be cooler if you are using it for OS. On my board, the M.2_1 has a pretty good aluminum die-cast heat sink, but it's way closer to the GPU card that's throwing out some significant heat.

I had a hell of a time installing my OS, because I had 2 other hard drives + another SSD. It was just easier for me to disable everything but the SSD for the OS and then plug/enable everything back to normal. But that's different than your issue(s).