Legacy bios on HP Z820 cannot recognize NVME SSD in boot order

[neverhappened22]

Hi,

I've read many things about installing nvme ssd on HP PCs, but I have not been able to solve my issue.

I tried to boot from a newly installed NVME SSD (Sabrent Rocket Q) on my HP Z820. The SSD is installed via PCIe adapter.

If I boot to windows with my old boot drive, I can see the new ssd drive in windows 10.

However, in bios boot order, bios cannot recognize the newly installed ssd and it does not even show up there. Thus I cannot boot from the new SSD.

My bios version is HP J63 v03.96 and it is in legacy mode.

Can somebody help on this topic?

Thanks!

Michael

[SDH]

The Z Turbo Drive G1 was developed to interact properly with the later BIOS releases for the ZX20 workstations, and the Z Turbo Drive G2 (with aluminum-finned heatsink) was engineered to interact properly with the later BIOS releases for the ZX40 workstations.

The G1 was for AHCI-controller M.2 sticks; the G2 for NVMe-controller M.2 sticks. It is the controller on the stick, not the PCIe card itself, that is the issue. For all practical purposes a NVMe M.2 stick will not work in a ZX20 workstation as a boot drive. Don't waste your time. In fact, there is some added "snap" to be had by upshifting to a AHCI-controller M.2 boot drive stick but a current generation SATA III 512GB (or higher) SATAIII 2.5" form factor SSD does just fine in ZX20 workstations if you ensure it is plugged into one of the two gray SATA III ports on the motherboard (located at least for the Z420/Z620) at the bottom front motherboard corner). It is best to choose the most forward "SATA0" gray port over the adjacent "SATA1" gray port for your boot SATA SSD.

Educate yourself re the ZTD G1 and ZTD G2 cards with this link, HERE.     It is the M.2 stick installed that actually makes the difference... not the card.

DGroves and I have independently tested and found the HP AHCI-controller SM951 M.2 stick is almost as fast as a HP NVMe-controller SM951 stick (which works well in the next HP ZX40 generation of workstations.) The SM951 AHCI-controller version is the one to get, specifically the 512GB size, for your Z820 workstation. Those have enterprise MLC NAND chips so I don't worry about buying used versions.

That particular M.2 stick, put under a ZTD G2 aluminum heatsink in a ZTD G2 PCIe card, runs very fast (hotter running bare than the XP941) and it is perfectly cooled by that HP ZTD G2 card/heatsink. The HP engineering on the ZTD G2 card is top notch, and it provides a truly single-slot width.  I'm now running all of our SM951 AHCI-controller M.2 sticks in that G2 card under that HP heatsink because they perform so well... I can find a ZTD G2 on eBay now for a bit over $20.00 USD. For a slower cooler-running XP941 I just run it bare in a ZTD G1 card.

I'm working currently to figure out an issue with exactly what Device Manager "Storage Controllers" driver work best with the HP ZTD AHCI-controller G1 sticks in ZX20 workstations running W10Pro64... some driver versions result in a blue screen crash. Stay tuned. I'll post the solution assuming I make the expected breakthrough.

[DGroves]

the pre z840 model workstations lack the necessary Bios code to support booting from NVME which is why you need to use a AHCI based SSD

while it is possible to boot from a nvme drive using several methods (i used Duet/REFIND) it's  not that much faster than the AHCI version of the sm951so if you can find the AHCI sm951 it's the way to go

i don't know why many people have issues with setting up DUET/REFIND to enable boot from nvme drives but it appear they do I've posted two detailed replies on this subject so if interested search this forum  for "z820 boot from SSD dgroves" below is one of my posts on this subject

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/Booting-to-NVMe-ON...

there are also a few PCI-E based SSD's that will boot on a z820 but  in my opinion they tend to be hard to find and/or expensive for the speed/capacity , making them a poor value.  I've also mentioned which ones I've personally tested in a z820 that were bootable previous posts such as the intel 750/3600 series or the seagate warpdrive ssd's