BD-DVD SATA Drive disappeared after populating PCIe2.0x16 slot with NVMe M.2-to-PCIe adapter card.

I bought a M.2 NVMe-to-PCIe adapter card and fitted it in PCIe 2.0 x16 slot running at x4 speed. Before the change I disabled the other drives in BIOS except the DVD drive. They are still disabled.

M.2 NVMe drive has Windows 11 Build 26200.5761 on it.

When I started the PC, Windows 11 re-configured itself ( so I assume) and started to run properly.

M.2 NVMe drive was previously on a native M.2 slot and was running at x2 speed. I wanted to increase speed a little bit. Now it is running at x4 speed.



But this operation had a negative side effect. My BD-DVD drive connected at SATA 1 port has disappeared from Device Manager and Windows Explorer. Instead, a new disk drive appeared and asks me to initialize this disk drive when I start Disk Management tool.



When I select to use GPT (GUID Partition Table) and press O.K., I get an error: Virtual Disk Manager /Wrong operation.



Did anyone else here have a disappearing DVD drive before and is there a solution other than removing the DVD drive or M.2-to-PCIe adapter ?

I do know that using NVME drives takes a SATA port up when used.

Thank you @Dwarfr66 for your prompt reply.

According to my M/B manual, PCIe NVMe drive takes 2 PCIe x1 slots out in PCIe mode and takes SATA 4 port out in SATA mode. Since my adapter card is for M.2 PCIe NVMe drives, it does not touch SATA ports. Besides, my DVD drive is in SATA port 1 and not in SATA port 4 even if I have used M.2 SATA drive.

You can put bd drive on external usb case

Thank you @valkryie999 for the advice. I think there must be some confusion in Windows 11's way of handling hardware. Since Windows has been running for a long time - more than 6 years - on the PC and there have been many upgrades and updates, I decided to re-install Windows 11 from scratch and see if BD-DVD drive was still unrecognized or recognized as hard disk drive.

Have you tried to move the BD-DVD drive to a different SATA port?

BTW, my original motherboard had one M.2 port. I added a 2nd M.2 drive by installing a PCIe card with a M.2 port. I had no conflicts with the BD-DVD SATA drive.

@MisterEd No, I haven't tested another SATA port. I clean-installed Windows 11 24H2 because that was easier than installing a SATA cable to an empty SATA port in a crowded PC case. Surprisingly, the mysterious drive has gone after clean-installation. Then I started to install hardware drivers. Asus chipset driver installation unfortunately re-created the mysterious drive again. I believe Asus chipset driver plus Crucial NVMe drive in NVMe-to-PCIe adapter card did not get along well. End of story.

Anyway, thanks for the idea.

suatcini54 said:

@MisterEd No, I haven't tested another SATA port. I clean-installed Windows 11 24H2 because that was easier than installing a SATA cable to an empty SATA port in a crowded PC case. Surprisingly, the mysterious drive has gone after clean-installation. Then I started to install hardware drivers. Asus chipset driver installation unfortunately re-created the mysterious drive again. I believe Asus chipset driver plus Crucial NVMe drive in NVMe-to-PCIe adapter card did not get along well. End of story.

Anyway, thanks for the idea.

Click to expand...

I understand that problem. If I have three desktop computers. They all have ASUS motherboards. It is a real pain to get at the SATA ports on the motherboard. I usually have to practically dismantle the computer to get at these ports.

BTW, a few hours ago I was working on an old computer. It has 2 Samsung 870 EVO SSDs connected to SATA ports. It has 2 external HDDs connected to USB 3.0 ports on a PCIe card. had to replace a dual USB 3.0 front panel bracket. After I was done I put the card back in. When I booted again I was shocked to see that only one of the Samsung SSDs showed up. Neither of the external HDDs showed up either.

When I checked inside the computer I saw the problem. I had plugged the PCIe card into a PCIe x16 instead of a PCIe x1 slot. It made sense that the external HDDs did not show up but I don't know why one of the SSDs connected to SATA did not show up. After I moved the card to the PCIe x1 slot and booted the computer all 4 drives showed up as expected.

BTW, I have one desktop computer which I replaced the motherboard with a ASUS PRIME X370-PRO motherboard. In a previous setup it booted from the onboard M.2 NVME SSD connector. I connected a 2nd M.2 NVME SSD using a PCIe adapter card. Currently the computer has 3 SATA SSDs. When I am ready to upgrade to Windows 11 I will put the 2 M.2 NVME SSDs back in. It worked fine in the past so I expected no problems.

Could be that the power supply cannot provide enough power for the DVD drive to work properly? Try another SATA power cable, if you have available. Also try another SATA port. It might also be that you accidentally disconnected the SATA cable from the DVD or the motherboard (not good connection) and is not identified properly. Try removing it and connect it again. See BIOS if you have to configure anything at the storage section. If the issue is due to chipset driver, you may need to reinstall Windows. This time don't install the driver from Asus, let Windows Update find anything missing. Install only the graphics drivers for best performance.

Thank you both @MisterEd and @spapakons for your advice.

DVD drive works well in the other Windows 11 installation on the same PC. So cable connection seems secured. Besides cable heads have latches to secure against accidental removal.

I believe the NVMe drive in NVMe-to-PCIe adapter did not go well in the secondary PCIe 2.0 x16 slot (works at x4 speed). So I removed the adapter and ordered an NVMe-to-USB adapter. I will not re-insert this drive into its native M.2 socket on the motherboard and will use the drive itself as a take-along data drive.

If rearranging the buses fails, I suggest connecting the BD drive to USB internally. Years ago I wanted to have as many DVD drives as possible in a year 2009 computer with tons of SATA ports. This was more or less to avoid... USB sticks!!!! (they were expensive in that age, and I like optical drives myself, several DVDs working in parallel have a good bandwidth, this was to backup my disk images to external storage). Well, one could say, if you have 14 or 18 SATA ports, 1 IDE port for 2 drives, and 2 SATA disks using it all, the limit for the DVDs is the case lol.

The problem is that, simplifying, the limit for optical drives (unlike HDDs or SSDs) is the NUMBER OF BUSES, not the number of ports (and this btw might be related to your problem, but Idk the map of buses and ports in your motherboard; if you have a spare SSD or HDD, you might try it in place of your BD drive and see if it works correctly and the problem is that optical drives are buses hogs).

How many buses did I have available for my DVD drives in parallel?

- 1 IDE bus.
- 1 "main" SATA bus (provided by the motherboard's south bridge).
- 1 "additional" SATA bus (provided by an independent controller that the motherboard had).
- The USB bus, 2.0 btw (I did never try printing, scanning or using games through USB controllers while attending the 4 DVD recorders in parallel, so Idk what would have happened, keyboard and mouse were PS/2).

To connect the latter of my recorders (it was IDE, but the critical adapter could attend SATA too) I found this:

- IDE/SATA to USB-A male adapter.
- USB-A female to internal USB plug (a short cable of maybe 10 cm).

I operated this more or less monthly during several years.

PS: are you dual booting? It wouldn't surprise me that there's a difference depending on if the new drive has a working/active Windows installation or it's "like a data drive" b/c the working/active Windows is in another drive. I cannot concrete more but I've heard weird stories with M2 to PCIe adapters.

If it is a drivers issue, I would reinstall Windows. Since it is a fresh installation is it much faster and better than trying to fix it. But don't install the chipset drivers this time. Windows should find automatically any chipset driver for that old motherboard. I would only download and install the graphics driver since I want the full package, not only the basic driver from Windows Update.