HELP! Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 not seeing Samsung 850 PRO SSD

[torin3]

Ok, hold on a minute here, I'm getting confused.

Currently I am:

A. Using a USB image that has been modified by a Gigabyte program to have USB support for 7 slipstreamed. When I run Win 7 setup from here, the setup doesn't see the Samsung SSD 840 (which is not on the compatible list from Gigabyte). This drive IS PLUGGED INTO A NATIVE INTEL SATA PORT. The manual says Native Intel ports are 0/1/2/3/4/5 and the non-native ones are 6/7. I've only tried 0-5 and none of them show the drive.

B. At the select drive screen in setup, when I click on "Load Driver" it DOES see all the USB ports, and I can plug in a USB stick with the SATA drivers on them and it does see the USB drive and installs the drivers. However, no drive shows up on the select drive screen after it has done this.

C. I was planning on getting a Samsung 850 Evo that IS on the compatible list from Gigabyte. Is this going to make any difference?

(I guess I should have bought that MSI Z170 board when it was offered to me....but no, I wanted the extra PCI-E 16x slot.... )

 

[EarthDog]

Ive never paid attention to a HDD/SSD compatibility list.... interesting. Can you see the SSD in the BIOS? Set it to the primary boot drive?

Ive never had to install sata drivers for Z170 either.. And actually I have had a 840 Evo work just fine in Z170... not that giga board, but fine on all the others.
safsaf

 

[Woomack]

As I said, get any SATA or USB DVD drive and run it from DVD. It's the cheapest/the easiest way.
Other way is to install Win7 on other/older motherboard with Intel controller ( needs AHCI ) and simply move it to Z170 and then activate it.

Also regarding what you just said. To run it from USB you need 2 drivers, one for USB and other for SATA and both have to be loaded. Gigabyte probably added only one of them. I'm not sure in what way they are making it. No matter what SSD you have, all should work as driver is required for SATA controller, not the SSD.

 

[EarthDog]

Why do SATA drivers keep coming up? I have never had to install them? What am I missing?

 

[torin3]

Ive never paid attention to a HDD/SSD compatibility list.... interesting. Can you see the SSD in the BIOS? Set it to the primary boot drive?

No, it doesn't show up in the BIOS either. Also, I did plug in my SATA Blu-Ray drive to try and install from DVD, and it saw it in the BIOS and it ran setup. It still didn't see the SSD in the drive selection screen in setup though, and since I didn't have USB support, I couldn't try and install the SATA drivers from USB. The driver DVD from Gigabyte was at works, so I couldn't try that.

Ive never had to install sata drivers for Z170 either.. And actually I have had a 840 Evo work just fine in Z170... not that giga board, but fine on all the others.
safsaf

 

[Woomack]

I'm not really sure why but when you install WinXP/Win7 from USB then somehow installer can't see controllers. I know that Intel SATA controller should be in installer or at least default MS AHCI driver but somehow it's not loading when you are using USB.

 

[torin3]

As I said, get any SATA or USB DVD drive and run it from DVD. It's the cheapest/the easiest way.
Other way is to install Win7 on other/older motherboard with Intel controller ( needs AHCI ) and simply move it to Z170 and then activate it.

Also regarding what you just said. To run it from USB you need 2 drivers, one for USB and other for SATA and both have to be loaded. Gigabyte probably added only one of them. I'm not sure in what way they are making it. No matter what SSD you have, all should work as driver is required for SATA controller, not the SSD.

I tried installing from a SATA Blu-Ray and it didn't work.

 

[Woomack]

That's weird. I was installing Win7 on Samsung 840 Pro , 840 Evo, Plextor P5 and Crucial MX200 M.2 without issues but on ASUS and ASRock motherboards.

 

[torin3]

So, is this something I should take to Gigabyte tech support, even with the 'not-listed-compatible-SSD' I'm trying to use? Or are they just going to require me to get the bloody drive before trying anything else?

Btw, thanks guys, the support is REALLY appreciated!

 

[NZKshatriya]

Reason I am on win8 now, is when I was trying to install Win7Ultimate from disk, I ran into this issue as well on my sabertooth, Win7 setup would not detect either of my Sandisk SSD Plus's. Move to my copy of Win8Pro, and no issues.

 

[torin3]

Reason I am on win8 now, is when I was trying to install Win7Ultimate from disk, I ran into this issue as well on my sabertooth, Win7 setup would not detect either of my Sandisk SSD Plus's. Move to my copy of Win8Pro, and no issues.

I don't own any copies of Win8, and I'm a little hesitant to jump to Win10 until their is a way to turn-off/block the telemetry.

 

[NZKshatriya]

^^^^^

Im thinking of backtracking to 7 Ultimate actually, next semester. So yeah......I would like to see how this thread progresses.

 

[EarthDog]

So, is this something I should take to Gigabyte tech support, even with the 'not-listed-compatible-SSD' I'm trying to use? Or are they just going to require me to get the bloody drive before trying anything else?

Btw, thanks guys, the support is REALLY appreciated!

Did you test with another drive to see if that works?

 

[torin3]

Did you test with another drive to see if that works?

I don't have any other spare SSDs and I hadn't cleared the data off of any of the HDs.

I guess I'm going to go ahead and get the 850. I can use the 840 in my work computer to speed it up.

 

[NZKshatriya]

I still don't understand manufacturer/board specific hardware compatibility.

To me, it sounds like: "we screwed up in engineering, and instead of fixing something, we will just put out a list of what will work with the system."

 

[EarthDog]

Always have spares laying around for reasons like this (testing!).

 

[NZKshatriya]

Always have spares laying around for reasons like this (testing!).

Just don't get disorganized like me............I found a spare molex/sata power cable in my sock drawer.....
Thats when I know its time to straighten up my room

 

[Woomack]

new idea ... install Win7 on HDD and clone it to SSD

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Did you test another SATA cable also?

 

[torin3]

Did you test another SATA cable also?

No I did not, but the cable is in use with other MB and that SSD right now. I'll try a different one.