In this video we're going to go over a few simple reasons as to why your windows install
can't find that SSD the M.2 socket right over here is very easy to slide into but at the same
time incredibly difficult so first off before you slide in the drive here make sure you have removed
the M.2 screw if your board has one the newer boards have a locking mechanism okay so then
you would want to slide an M.2 drive just right in here push it down and then screw that in but
there's a little bit more to it than just that so you might notice right over here there are some
pins sticking out that gold right over here where you can just push it in and now it's properly
seated so to show you again I'll remove it and then I'll go ahead I'll push it in a little tiny
bit but you can still see those pins sticking out if you push it in all the way just a little
bit more Force you don't see those gold pins anymore and now you can push down your M.2 SSD
screw it in and that's good it should show in the BIOS but there's a little bit more to it than just
the way you physically installed it now for this one we're going to have to go to the motherboard
manufacturer's website you would type up here Asus tough Z690 plus Wi-Fi and this will be the DDR5
board mind you it could be whatever motherboard you have this is a quick easy way to find it so
then right over here this is the D4 board and this is the D5 board the DDR5 variant and that's what
I'm installing on but you would find that whatever you want to type in here maybe EVGA x570 dark
motherboard then we could find that over here but we go to your motherboard manufacturer's site here
they're going to talk about the text backs reviews support all the information about your motherboard
so then over here we go to the support site one of the very first things I highly recommend you do is
update the BIOS to the latest version one of the reasons I recommend coming in here to flash your
BIOS is improve system overclocking stability but you may not overclock that's okay improve system
performance improve system stability improve system stability improve dram stability update
the me version improve system stability improve system performance and compatibility improve
our firmware for Aura sync improve system performance add Thunderbolt firmware update
improve dram improve system stability improve Thunderbolt improve system performance and so
much more now this particular one doesn't have it that many motherboards actually have improved M.2
system stability improve M.2 compatibility improve M.2 features and functions so it's not only going
to improve the odds of an M.2 Drive working but it's going to improve overall system stability one
of the biggest things I fight is a lot of people telling me I don't want to update the BIOS because
the only reason you may not want to update the BIOS is because maybe your light lights go out
often I recommend you get a battery backup for that updating your BIOS improves so many
things a lot of the issues you may be having now could be BIOS related but anyways one of
the main things that we're going after here is to show the M.2 drive in the BIOS we don't see
that in this particular one but it might in your particular motherboard so check out the support
site there's more here though that was just for the BIOS so coming back up here we'll go to manual
and document and then we'll look for the user's manual for me it'll be English download it so
then scroll down a little tiny bit we'll have the M.2 installation and then sometimes it might be
a little bit more difficult to find so we'll do a Control+F and search for the word M.2 this is what
I was looking for so the very first M.2 slot on this particular motherboard supports PCIE 4.0 by 4
and SATA modes while the second one supports PCIE 4.0 by 4 mode and the last one supports PCA 4.0 by
4 mode so these two depending on how they worded it may not work with SATA M.2 drives now you might
be confused I thought all M.2 drives were saddle they are but they aren't so these are the types
of n.2 drives that we're used to today there's only one notch right over here but originally
they were like this they had two notches for the B and the M on the motherboard now this is
an NVME M.2 SATA drive so it is a little bit faster than typical SATA M.2 drives which capped
out at about 600 Megs per second whereas this one is a little bit faster because of the MV
me and the way it manages larger files this one could have a potential issue on that top slot
so just another thing to take mention is nearer boards will more better support M.2 like this
with only one notch they might have issues with the older standard the B and the M on there so
that's what they mean by that now all of that was to help you see the M.2 drive in your BIOS if you
could already see it in your BIOS but you can't see it in the Windows 10 or Windows 11 installer
this next part will be for you and again you're going to need to know your exact motherboard make
and model to find this information so we can close out of this PDF over here and we'll come back over
here to the support site we'll go back to drivers and utility and then drivers and tools and then
please choose and select your version of Windows so we'll click here so we'll scroll down a little
tiny bit until we see SATA Intel Rapid Storage Technology Drive we're just going to go ahead and
click on here and then once this is downloaded we'll just open here or click on that to open
it we'll go to the driver 64-bit and then I'll go ahead and plug in that USB drive that has Windows
11 on it that I'm installing from we'll just open it up here continue without scanning right over
here we're going to see five files right click here copy then we'll come back to our thumb drive
and we'll right click here we'll click new and folder and then we could just name this one SATA
and then we're going to paste those drivers here this particular motherboard is a Z690 chipset
it's going to mainly depend on your chipset be it an x570, b550 Z690, Z790 whatever chipset
your motherboard has you're going to want to go to the support site for your motherboard
and download the SATA drivers for it it could also be called the RAID drivers and the location could
be slightly different inside of that zip file that we navigated to if you have any questions
on it go ahead and comment down below I reply to everyone and that's all we need right over here
so now we're done here and let's go back to that other computer with this Windows 11 thumb drive
so now F so now after having plugged in that thumb drive will click on load driver browse now we'll
go to that thumb drive and then we'll go to sat depending on where you grabbed those files from,
from that zip file and where you put them on the thumb drive your location may be different
and then we'll click OK here and then here we're going to see these two depending on your chipset
your motherboard your anything there is a chance that you can see much more than two or maybe only
one so don't freak out then here we'll go ahead and hold the left shift key and highlight the
bottom one make sure you select them all and then click next this will take a few seconds to copy
the drivers onto the whim of the windows install boom now we see the drive in this particular
machine I have two drives this was my previous installation and this was the storage Drive the
only reason I know that off top of my head is The Sovereign drive that I want to install on is a two
terabyte drive while the other Drive was only a one terabyte drive so from this point if you
want to install Windows on this particular drive and there's already a partition there we can see
that there is a partition there may be five six seven partitions as long as drive one or whatever
drive that partition is delete that one partition or multiple partitions that are part of that same
drive so that there is only one of that drive now for unallocated space select that drive and then
click next so that's it easy enough it was either a BIOS change a BIOS update or drivers causing
your drive not to be seen in the installer so if you have any questions comments or concerns as
always please do check out the link below now if you want a more detailed video on how to install
Windows and all that good stuff go ahead and check out the video up above in here I show you not only
how to install an M.2 drive but I show you how to go through the entire Windows install and
then how to install drivers and all that stuff Iggy with ThisBytesForYou out, see you guys