Solved! Intel Optane 900P as Boot Drive

[Paul Hogan]

I have a 900P installed in the PCIE16_X4 slot on my ASUS Prime Z370 A but Windows won't install there even though it recognizes the drive and loads the drivers during Windows install. It says it is not a bootable device. Has anyone been able to install the 900 P as a Windows boot drive?

 

[nosirrahx]

I have a 900P installed in the PCIE16_X4 slot on my ASUS Prime Z370 A but Windows won't install there even though it recognizes the drive and loads the drivers during Windows install. It says it is not a bootable device. Has anyone been able to install the 900 P as a Windows boot drive?

I use the 905P on a X299 and 900P on a Z370 without issue, both on Windows 10.

Did you change anything in BIOS like disable secure boot? Are you trying to install Windows 10 or an earlier OS?

In both cases I integrated the NVMe drivers for the 900P/905P directly into my install image and was able to install directly without any additional steps.

 

[Paul Hogan]

I am installing Windows 10. I 'Load" the Intel drivers at the first dialogue box which identifies the 900P as installed. I checked the BIOS. It was set for 'Other OS'. I set it for "UEFI OS" which supports boot security. Still stopped by Windows with a msg saying device isn't bootable check BIOS. I checked BIOS again and set M.2_1 to PCIE from 'Auto'. I've tried M.2_2 in either X2 or X4 (it's always set for PCIe) and still can't load Windows. Both M.2 Ports have Optane 800P 118GB NVMe SSD's installed. If I go either to RAID PCIe set up in BIOS or 'Storage Spaces' in the Windows Control Panel, RAID says no drives available (the BIOS control panel shows all three drives under the 'Boot Menu') and Storage Spaces says it can't create a storage pool though the 3 drives appear as available for a pool. In Control Panel>Admin Tools>Computer Management>Drive Management, I can combine the 3 drives into a Spanned Volume which appears in Window Explorer with no problem. No matter what I do, when I go to install Windows on the 900P 280GB SSD, it says device not bootable.

 

[Paul Hogan]

I am installing Windows 10. I 'Load" the Intel drivers at the first dialogue box which identifies the 900P as installed. I checked the BIOS. It was set for 'Other OS'. I set it for "UEFI OS" which support boot security. Still stopped by Windows with a msg saying device isn't bootable check BIOS. I checked BIOS again and set M.2_1 to PCIE from 'Auto'. I've tried M.2_2 in either X2 or X4 and still can't load Windows. Both M.2 Ports have Optane 800P 118GB NVMe SSD's installed. If I go either to RAID PCIe set up in BIOS or 'Storage Spaces' in the Windows Control Panel, RAID says no drives available and Storage Spaces says it

 

[Paul Hogan]

Storage Spaces says it can't create the pool. I create a span drive with the 3 drives in Control Panel>Admin Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management and Windows Explorer finds it and uses it with no problem.

 

[Billy Tallis]

Take all drives other than the 900P out of the system. Wipe the 900P, preferably with a Linux-based tool that will get rid of all copies of any partition tables. In your motherboard's firmware configuration, disable all RST or RAID related features, leaving the SATA controller in standard AHCI mode. Disable the BIOS CSM so that only UEFI booting is enabled. Then you should have no trouble installing Windows 10 to the 900P, and only after Windows is installed should you put other drives back in the system or re-enable unnecessary features or install any extra storage drivers.

 

[Paul Hogan]

Thanks. Will try and advise results.

 

[Paul Hogan]

Solved and thanks to Billy Tallis. A few quirks though, When I disabled CSM in the BIOS I lost my GTX 1060 VGA card and got three rapid beeps during boot and couldn't access the BIOS control panel. Changed to 'Auto' for CSM and both card and Optane 900P recognized. I wiped the 900p clean using Windows command shell 'Diskpart' and Windows began to install with no partition or BIOS warnings. However, it kept quitting somewhere around 30% saying it couldn't find required files even though I loaded the 900P drivers at the 'Load Drivers' screen. The VGA card was removed at this point, all SATA (except 860 EVO) and USB devices were disconnected. Finally cloned my existing 860 EVO Windows installation to the 900P using AOEMI, removed the 860, and everything is fine now. Again, thanks for all the input and help.

 

[sucros3]

Paul, where did you get the drivers? All I can find is the Intel Managment Drivers.

I also have an Intel Optane 280gb PCEI that I'm trying to install Windows 7 on.

 

[nosirrahx]

Paul, where did you get the drivers? All I can find is the Intel Managment Drivers.

I also have an Intel Optane 280gb PCEI that I'm trying to install Windows 7 on.

Client NVMe* Microsoft Windows* Drivers for Intel® SSDs

Intel® NVMe* driver 5.3.0.1005 supports the Client Intel® SSD's based on PCIe* NVMe*.

downloadcenter.intel.com