Solved Windows 11 Clean install with more than one NVME drives

Dru2 · Feb 11, 2022

Winuser said:
, but I truly believe that the OP thought the OS had to be on disk 0.

Agree

glasskuter · Feb 12, 2022

I can't speak for your system but I was bamboozled when I discovered my m.2 boot drive is NOT disk 0 at all but disk 1. My sata HDD storage drive shows up as disk 0. Guess what I'm trying to say is if you have 2 identical m.2 drives, be careful because I'm proof the boot drive is not always designated disk 0.

Dru2 · Feb 12, 2022

glasskuter said:
what I'm trying to say is if you have 2 identical m.2 drives, be careful because I'm proof the boot drive is not always designated disk 0.

Yeah, most of us have been saying that. See post #40 :wink:

AddRAM · Feb 15, 2022

It`s all about the disk driver you use too, if you use the Standard Microsoft driver, a M.2 might show up as Disk 0, if you have a Samsung and use the Samsung NVM express driver version 3.3 (970 Pro, Evo etc) the M.2 will show up at the bottom of Disk Management.
The Samsung 980 uses the Standard driver so it shows up at the top of Disk Management. It doesn`t really matter.
If you try to use version 3.3 for a 980 it will tell you to install the M.2 (it doesn`t see it)
Why Samsung doesn`t have a driver for the 980 is anybody`s guess.
But the Standard driver works just fine.

Dru2 · Feb 15, 2022

AddRAM said:
It`s all about the disk driver you use, if you use the Standard Microsoft driver, a M.2 might show up as Disk 0, if you have a Samsung and use driver version 3.3 (970 Pro, Evo etc) the M.2 will show up at the bottom of Disk Management.

Thanks for pointing that out; I never even knew that. Probably cause I always use the Samsung NVMe drivers for my 970 Pro's.

And yeah, agree it doesn't matter.

AddRAM · Feb 15, 2022

Ya the Samsung driver works with the 970 Pro, I had a 970 Pro on this Z170, but it ran warm, so I just bought a 870 Evo. You can`t even feel the speed difference.
The Samsung M.2 driver is still on this system, it`s just not being used, no need to remove it.
Look at the year for my 870 Evo

LOL

Dru2 · Feb 15, 2022

AddRAM said:
Ya the Samsung driver works with the 970 Pro, I had a 970 Pro on this Z170, but it ran warm, so I just bought a 870 Evo. You can`t even feel the speed difference.

I have two 970 Pros in my system - a 512gig OS drive, and a 1TB Photos drive.

According to AIDA64, the OS drive hovers around 47C, while the photo drive idles at 40C. I think the highest temp I had on the OS drive was somewhere around 70. No worries as I read somewhere the drives can get up to 90 before issues arise. Anyway, my board has built-in heat absorbing strips behind a top cover, so no heating issues here. I've also got 3 Samsung EVO SATA drives.

AddRAM · Feb 15, 2022

Ya mine ran in the high 40`s too.

SSD 970 PRO NVMe M.2 512GB Memory & Storage - MZ-V7P512BW | Samsung US

Discover the latest features and innovations available in the SSD 970 PRO NVMe M.2 512GB. Find the perfect Memory & Storage for you!

www.samsung.com

AddRAM · Feb 15, 2022

The 980 Pro on the X299 only runs in the mid 30`s, that board has a motherboard fan and has heatsinks like all the new boards do.

ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II | Motherboards | ROG United States

ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II

rog.asus.com

Dru2 · Feb 15, 2022

AddRAM said:
Look at the year for my 870 Evo LOL

View attachment 22042

Yeah, those Microsoft generic disk drive drivers don't need updating a lot. Not surprised about the date. In fact, if you look at a lot of Windows 10 & 11 "generic drivers", you'll see lots of 2006 dates :wink:

Dru2 · Feb 15, 2022

AddRAM said:
The 980 Pro on the X299 only runs in the mid 30`s, that board has a motherboard fan and has heatsinks like all the new boards do.

ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II | Motherboards | ROG United States

ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II

rog.asus.com

Yeah, I'm actually glad my Gigabyte board doesn't have a fan. They tend to wine which can get annoying at times. It's like this noise you can't quite figure out where it's coming from until you figure out it's the board's fan. It's no loud, it's just something you notice (I do).

My board - Z390 AORUS XTREME (rev. 1.0) Key Features | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

AddRAM · Feb 15, 2022

I don`t hear mine at all. The game or movie just drowns it out :winkt:

Scott · Feb 15, 2022

For both my 970 EVO's, under disk drives it shows Microsoft but under storage controllers it shows Samsung.

Dru2 · Feb 15, 2022

The correct ones to look at for your NVMe drive IS the "Storage Controller". The "Disk drives" driver is just generic driver to allow disk drives to operate. Without those you wouldn't even see the drive.

At any rate the NVMe driver isn't a must, but highly recommended by Samsung as they say it provides the best optimum performance.

AddRAM · Feb 15, 2022

@Scott, yours is perfect.
Your board must not have any Asmedia Sata ports.

Dru2 · Feb 15, 2022

AddRAM said:
I don`t hear mine at all. The game or movie just drowns it out

I built my system to be as quiet as possible since I also use my PC to listen to music. I only run 3 case fans, and two radiator fans for my AIO cooler. And since my EVGA power supply has an option to disable the fan unless the PS is pushed, I don't even have the fan running.

I also don't overclock, and my room temps stay around 75F all year, so I don't have to worry about heat :)

The only time the system gets loud is when gaming when the GPU fans kick in.

AddRAM · Feb 15, 2022

Same here, I have never had to turn on my Evga PSU fan.

Scott · Feb 15, 2022

AddRAM said:
@Scott, yours is perfect.
Your board must not have any Asmedia Sata ports.

No. According to my manual they're all Intel.

AddRAM · Feb 15, 2022

@Scott, the only thing strange is that you have 2 Samsung NVME Controllers listed.
Unless that`s normal if you have 2 of the same Samsung M.2`s like you do.
I have 2 980 Pro`s but 1 is sleeping :sleepy:

no Samsung driver would show up for them anyway.
Why isn`t your 250GB listed in your specs ?

This makes me want to put my 970 Pro back in, but I have no use for it really.

Scott · Feb 16, 2022

AddRAM said:
@Scott, the only thing strange is that you have 2 Samsung NVME Controllers listed.
Unless that`s normal if you have 2 of the same Samsung M.2`s like you do.

One controller per drive? Maybe so, not sure. It's been like that ever since I installed the driver.

AddRAM said:
Why isn`t your 250GB listed in your specs ?

Because I forgot to update it, nice catch. Just a spare drive I threw in to restore my Win 10 image to update it and clean it up some. I never ran any commands on it. sfc /scannow found and fixed some issues. dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup took about 20 minutes to complete. My Win 10 image size went from 106GB to 21GB. I did delete a 60GB folder that wasn't necessary as it resides on a different drive now.