Solved Windows 11 Clean install with more than one NVME drives

Keith Weisshar · Feb 11, 2022

My motherboard has two NVME M.2 slots. If both slots have WD SN750 2TB installed, which slot will I use when I install to Disk 0? Is there a 50/50 chance that it will use either the top or bottom slot each time I boot the Windows 11 installer and choose Disk 0? Having two identical drives can easily cause a confusion.

Ghot · Feb 11, 2022

Keith Weisshar said:
My motherboard has two NVME M.2 slots. If both slots have WD SN750 2TB installed, which slot will I use when I install to Disk 0? Is there a 50/50 chance that it will use either the top or bottom slot each time I boot the Windows 11 installer and choose Disk 0? Having two identical drives can easily cause a confusion.

Couldn't you just temporarily remove one of the M.2 SSDs?

Keith Weisshar · Feb 11, 2022

It's not as easy as removing the SATA drive they are hidden under the motherboard M.2 heatsink covers and it also requires unplugging AC power and waiting for all capacitors to discharge and also requires a screwdriver. M.2 screws are tiny and easily lost.

cereberus · Feb 11, 2022

It is not clear what you are asking. You can set whichever drive you wish as boot drive in bios. The old disk 0 conventions died out years ago.

Ghot · Feb 11, 2022

Keith Weisshar said:
It's not as easy as removing the SATA drive they are hidden under the motherboard M.2 heatsink covers and it also requires unplugging AC power and waiting for all capacitors to discharge and also requires a screwdriver. M.2 screws are tiny and easily lost.

I realize that, but you would only have to remove one of them, just during the Win 11 install.

CornishRattler · Feb 11, 2022

Does your documentation not tell you which is the primary slot and which is the secondary slot?

Ghot · Feb 11, 2022

CornishRattler said:
Does your documentation not tell you which is the primary slot and which is the secondary slot?

It doesn't. I just downloaded them and checked.
Well the top slot is numbered 1 and the bottom slot is numbered 2.

Ernimus Prime · Feb 11, 2022

Look in your BIOS. It should give you a list of your drives installed.

RFS · Feb 11, 2022

When you install it asks you which disk you want to use - your choice. My PC has two SSD disks - NVME and SATA. The NVME is disk 1 and the SATA is disk 0 but it always boots correctly from the NVME disk.

humbird · Feb 11, 2022

On my Huawei laptop, I have only one nvme disk but it is at the edge of the large heat sink like your #2 slot looks to be. I actually removed the original nvme drive by removing the screw and lifting the heat sink just slightly and sliding out the drive so I could replace it with a larger drive. To put the drive back in lift ever so slightly and slide it into place. Are you able to do that on your motherboard with the one labeled #2? You must be very gentle and make sure the drive is seated. leave bottom open till sure it all works. Put the screw in and boot up. Make sure drive shows. #1 disk is probably your boot disk.

Hazel123 · Feb 11, 2022

I seem to remember from years ago, with a machine with two drives, that even if you install it on the one that is not seen as the main boot drive - you can change that in bios afterwards. I still have disk 0 and disk 1 in disk manager.

When you install, just choose disk 0 (it probably doesn;t matter though). Then after install, check in bios, which is the drive that is set to boot from. If it doesn't boot, it's the other drive!

But as others have said, maybe look in bios first and see what the set up looks like.

Winuser · Feb 11, 2022

Keith Weisshar said:
My motherboard has two NVME M.2 slots. If both slots have WD SN750 2TB installed, which slot will I use when I install to Disk 0? Is there a 50/50 chance that it will use either the top or bottom slot each time I boot the Windows 11 installer and choose Disk 0? Having two identical drives can easily cause a confusion.

The slots will not change. When you do the install, you can use either disk you want. The install doesn't have to be disk 0. On my new desktop Windows is installed on disk 0. disk 0 is the NVMe drive that came preinstalled. Disk 1 is an SSD that I installed later. On my old desktop Windows is install on disk 1. Disk 1 is an NVMe drive that I installed to replace the Optane drive that came with the computer. Disk 0 is an HDD that I use as my data drive. You might have to go into the BIOS and select the boot partition.

NavyLCDR · Feb 11, 2022

Keith Weisshar said:
My motherboard has two NVME M.2 slots. If both slots have WD SN750 2TB installed, which slot will I use when I install to Disk 0? Is there a 50/50 chance that it will use either the top or bottom slot each time I boot the Windows 11 installer and choose Disk 0? Having two identical drives can easily cause a confusion.

I'm at a loss as to what difference it makes if it is the top or bottom slot?

Dru2 · Feb 11, 2022

Ghot said:
I realize that, but you would only have to remove one of them, just during the Win 11 install.

Yeah. But on my system, I'd have to remove the PC from its cubby, open the case, remove the GPU, then 4 screws, a shield panel, another screw holding the NVMe drive in. Then I'd have to install the GPU, hookup monitor, install the OS. Disconnect monitor, remove the GPU again, install screw, panel, screws, GPU; close everything back up again, and hope I don't have to do a reinstall

No. I simply disable SATA drives via BIOS, leave the other NVMe drive alone, and install the OS. Easy. Done. Next

That's me.

DigitalGoat · Feb 11, 2022

It depends on the generation support on some motherboards, top slot tends to be newer (so Gen4, Gen5) while bottom slot tends to be older. If using two identical drives, both supporting the same Gen then it doesn't really matter for general use, but you may want the newer Gen drive/ Slot for video editing/ rendering apps to use as a scratch drive, so installing Windows to the other (slower) drive makes a sort of sense.
If you really must know which drive is which then check the serial numbers in Disk part then compare to same in BIOS next to each drive/ slot.

NavyLCDR · Feb 11, 2022

You can also use hwinfo64 to determine if SSDs are connected to a PCIe 4 or PCIe 3 slot. hwinfo64 also gives you drive serial numbers. I don't think diskpart shows disk serial numbers, though.

Dru2 · Feb 11, 2022

NavyLCDR said:
I'm at a loss as to what difference it makes if it is the top or bottom slot?

DigitalGoat said:
It depends on the generation support on some motherboards, top slot tends to be newer (so Gen4, Gen5) while bottom slot tends to be older. If using two identical drives, both supporting the same Gen then it doesn't really matter for general use, but you may want the newer Gen drive/ Slot for video editing/ rendering apps to use as a scratch drive, so installing Windows to the other (slower) drive makes a sort of sense.
If you really must know which drive is which then check the serial numbers in Disk part then compare to same in BIOS next to each drive/ slot.

The "difference" can also be whether one NVMe slot disables SATA ports or not. The other difference is heat - as some NVMe ports sit directly under the GPU (lots of heat). There's also the fact that some NVMe ports disables SATA ports; also, may only support PCIE on certain m.2 slots while others don't. Depends on board, features, and design - cheaper boards can be more restrictive than more premium boards.

This info will be in the owner's manual and may even include a matrix as my Gigabyte Z390 and Z270 boards do.

NavyLCDR · Feb 11, 2022

Dru2 said:
The "difference" is whether one NVMe slot disables SATA ports or not. The other difference is heat - as some NVMe ports sit directly under the GPU (lots of heat). There's also the fact that some NVMe ports disables SATA ports; also, may only support PCIE on certain m.2 slots while others don't.

Depends on board, features, and design - cheaper boards can be more restrictive than more premium boards.

OK. But the OP has the same make/model SSD installed in each of the M.2 slots. So the SATA ports (if any) are disabled anyway regardless of which SSD Windows is installed on.

hsehestedt · Feb 11, 2022

here are trick you can use to determine which NVMe is which. This assumes that there is data on those NVMe disks now and that one of them has the OS on it already.

Boot from your Windows installation media.
At the first static screen, press SHIFT + F10 to open a command prompt.
Run "diskpart"
Run "list vol" and note what vol number is associated with drive letter C
Run "select volume 4" (NOTE: substitute the volume number you found above. It just happens to be "4" on my system)
Run "detail volume"

This will tell you the disk number associated with that volume.

Run "exit" to quit diskpart.

If the OS is not on one of those drives, simply drop a file on one of those NVMe drives from within Windows. Boot into your install media, open a command prompt, and locate that file. Use diskpart to determine what drive number setup sees that disk as being. Just be aware that what shows up as disk 0 (or any other number) in Windows setup may not be the same drive letter in a running instance of Windows.

Dru2 · Feb 11, 2022

NavyLCDR said:
OK. But the OP has the same make/model SSD installed in each of the M.2 slots. So the SATA ports (if any) are disabled anyway regardless of which SSD Windows is installed on.

It's not about the drives but how the m.2 is setup to handle the drive - Example on my Z270 board having two m.2 slots will only allow one to use all SATA ports when used. The table below for my Gigabyte GA-Z270X Gaming 8 board shows only the bottom (M2P_32G) allowing all my SATA ports to be used with that slot filled. Using the top (M2M_32G) will cost me two SATA slots...

BTW some m.2 ports will also downgrade certain PCIe slot speeds. Again... owner's manual.

But yes, if you don't use SATA ports, no issue, but if you need SATA ports, it "could" be an issue. It simply depends on needs.

Solved Windows 11 Clean install with more than one NVME drives

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