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M.2 not listed in SATA Configuration in BIOS

leyabe
Level 8

‎10-02-2017 05:25 PM - last edited on ‎03-06-2024 10:03 PM by Community Admin

Hi, I have a 250 GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 drive installed in the main M.2 slot (not the add-on M.2 card).
It is not showing in the BIOS Advanced\SATA Configuration page. Is that normal?
That BIOS page does have entries for M.2: M.2 (gray) and the M.2. DIMM, but all those show as "Empty". Because it shows as "Empty", I can'T toggle any setting such as "Hot Plug" for this drive.

The drive is correctly connected, is recognized by the BIOS in the "Boot" page, and I am able to install Windows and boot from it. It just shows as "Empty" in the SATA page. Is this normal? Anyone else seeing this? I thought I read a similar post a few days ago but can't find it anymore.
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9 REPLIES 9

Saturn7
Level 7

‎10-02-2017 05:53 PM

Yeah that seems to be a universal problem. They are there and function properly, they just don't show up.
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leyabe
Level 8
In response to Saturn7

‎10-02-2017 06:45 PM

Hey thanks a lot for confirming.
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DevBiker
Level 7

‎10-02-2017 06:45 PM

That's not a SATA drive, it's an NVME/PCIe drive. Since it's not connected via a SATA interface, it won't show up on the SATA page. It threw me when I first got one as well.
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leyabe
Level 8
In response to DevBiker

‎10-02-2017 06:54 PM

Ok thanks, makes sense I guess. I was just confused because the SATA page does have entries for M.2 drives as placeholders, but they appear as Empty.
But I understand now that there are different buses for M.2 drives (NVME/PCIe, SATA, USB). Thanks, your answer helped me understand better,
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paulmarc
Level 7
In response to leyabe

‎04-04-2018 10:38 AM

Thanks for the tip!

It was driving me crazy as well...
I have 3x drives, all NVMe (not SATA) and connected through the riser card and the "main slot" under the heat sink.
None of them is showing in the BIOS Advanced\SATA Configuration.

Is it because they're actually NVMe and not SATA?
If so, why to even include their entries with the other drivers in the first place...
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paulmarc
Level 7
In response to paulmarc

‎04-08-2018 05:59 AM

paulmarc wrote:

Is it because they're actually NVMe and not SATA?
If so, why to even include their entries with the other drivers in the first place...


Turns out, you can have M.2 SATA drives, not NVMe.
So if they are NVMe disks, they won't show up in the SATA configuration.
I don't have M.2 SATA drives to confirm, but I think that's the case.
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davemon50
Level 11

‎04-08-2018 06:28 AM

The 960 EVO is NVMe, if you look at the front of your package and even on the front of the disk, it's labeled that way. It won't show up as SATA drive.
Davemon50
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paulmarc
Level 7
In response to davemon50

‎04-09-2018 02:47 AM

davemon50 wrote:
The 960 EVO is NVMe, if you look at the front of your package and even on the front of the disk, it's labeled that way. It won't show up as SATA drive.


Exactly.
It's still counter-intuitive at first to include an entry that can actually not be there in the first place.
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mastaful
Level 7
In response to paulmarc

‎04-11-2018 05:48 AM

Im using all 3 of the m.2 slots and it seems that the sata controller wont use 3 of the sata ports and the m.2 at the same time

ports 1-4 seem to be shared with the m.2

i had to use ports 5 and 6 for my sata drives and leave 3 of the 1-4 ports unused to get all the drives to show up

idk if I'm correct but this was the only way to make all the drives show in the bios
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