@hancor
Thanks for the quick reply.
Turns out it's just the Windows installer refusing to install (maybe because it can't see the drive in the BIOS). I borrowed a Z170 chipset computer and installed Windows 10 on 960 pro with that, then put the drive back into my machine and it booted successfully.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Sorry for leaving the details out. I actually tried to follow the guide on linus tech tips forum first, seeing that Windows didn't install I found your guide and decided to try the NvmExpressDxe driver instead of the AMI Nvme driver. That's why I used MMTool and AFU.

I tried disabling Fast Boot, but a lot of the boot options disappeared as if disabling fast boot is enabling it, so I changed it back. I disabled Secure Boot.

I have tried over 10 times in
1. deleting all partitions on the target drive or diskpart clean the drive then convert gpt
2. either create new partition or directly click next on the unallocated space,
and all attempts have failed. Also, clicking on unallocated space will make the installer automatically create the partitions required for installation, and this was suggested at many forums to solve the "Couldn't create new partition" problem.

So I think it's just the installer unwilling to work on an old motherboard to install in an NVMe drive, since everything installed smoothly on my friend's Z170 motherboard.

Modded the latest bios for the MSI Z77a-GD65 the other day (E7751IMS.AC3 , https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=163874.0 , the beta bios that has been accepted as 'final') and installed it on a system which did not yet have an nvme drive installed. For the first boost it seemed fine, but on the second boot it seemed like it may have trashed the UEFI mapping table, and on boots after that it would spit me directly to UEFI shell until I booted up the recovery bios and flashed back to the official build.

The bios modding itself had gone flawlessly, with the module installed where expected and the bios reopened and verified. Any idea why things got corrupt? The system now has an nvme drive in place, and I've just been using it as a storage drive unless I can figure this out.

Hey Fernando,

Zitat

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1. After having flashed the modded BIOS, did you clear the CMOS and recover your previous BIOS settings thereafter?

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CMOS was cleared on image flash, and I did not attempt to recover my BIOS settings, but instead set similar values manually and disabled CSM. I did not disable secure boot/fast boot yet as the NVMe drive was not yet installed and still in transit. Could that have caused a problem?

Zitat

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2. Before re-flashing the original BIOS, did you see a system drive named "PATA SS" listed within the BIOS?

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I don't believe so, but I didn't check closely. Would it have appeared regardless of the NVMe drive not being installed yet?

Zitat

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3. How did you get the OS installed onto your NVMe SSD? Has it been a fresh install after having deleted all existing partitions or did you clone your previously used system drive?

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I hadn't gotten that far yet, this was a bios mod flash in preparation for an NVMe drive still in transit, so no OS install yet.

@serverror:
I have same board with the same bios modded as you. It is working now for around two years in conjunction with a Samsung 950 Pro as Win10 boot and system drive.
The UEFI does not list the SSD if it's empty. You need to install Windows in UEFI Mode, then UEFI will show you the Windows Boot Manger as boot option.
My relevant bios settings are:
Advanced: Windows 8 Configuration: All Disabled
Boot: Boot Mode UEFI
Boot: Boot Option 1: UEFI Hard Disk: Windows Boot Manager

@sandok:
Thank you for the data point and settings, that inspires some confidence.

No, it has a different arrangement of components on the board. It also has an extra ethernet port dedicated to remote management.

I can confirm that the Optane 900p is bootable on X79 with the BIOS mod.

I successfully modded the Asus P9X79 WS/IMPI board and another Asus P9X79 WS board. I will offer the modded bioses in the appropriate forum for others to use if they wish. The IMPI board unfortunately has the Overclock locked to a password by the OEM. Even changing the bios chip did not get rid of it so the only way to overclock is from the desktop interface. At least it boots to Nvme now though. Both of these boards showed the PATA SS in bios after successful flashing but indeed would not show the Nvme as a boot device until Windows was loaded on it. I also had to disable the secure boot features until AFTER the loading was done.

Hi,

I think I may have found an alternative way to boot from an Nvme drive on an non-uefi system. First I should say this idea has not been tested and probably will not work but it would be very interesting to say the least to test out. So basically I found a utility called ‘Efirom.exe’ that belongs to the edk2 toolset. What it does is take an efi driver, like our nvme_expressdxe driver, and convert it to an option rom. The only thing is you have to give it proper device id vendor id for your drive and probably set it to pci 2.3 spec. If it works you would have to set up a mbr type partition. Forget about Uefi of course not going to happen. I havent tried this yet on account of not having a spare nvme drive. Got my doubts though wether it would work but probably worth a try!