No SSD boot from external SATA 3 controller

Hello,
Nice place here :)
My problem is as follows:

I have a flawless AHCI installation of Windows 10 Home on Samsung 850 EVO SSD plugged to SATA 2 native port/controller at my motherboard Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H (GeForce 9400 chipset, F4 BIOS). Everything works just fine.

What happened next:

1. Bought and installed a Chinese external SATA 3 PCIe x1 controller card based on ASM1061 chip
PCI Express 2 Ports SATA 3 0 Card PCIe to Dual SATA 6GB s III Adapter ASM1061 | eBay
2. Plugged the aforementioned SSD to the card
3. Loaded BIOS optimized defaults
4. At startup the SATA 3 controller BIOS ROM initializes the SSD correctly
5. PC freezes at the 'Verifying DMI pool data..........' screen and nothing happens next

I tried various options in BIOS with no success. Boot drive order is correct (1. SCSI01 Samsung 850 EVO SSD), first boot drive: hard disk. Also tried 3 different SATA cables just to be sure this link is OK. Also tried to plug the SSD to the second SATA 3 port on card.

When I move the SSD back to the motherboard native SATA 2 port/controller - Windows boots with no issues

Do you have any clue is this a:

1. Hardware based problem (compatibility issue between SATA 3 card and the motherboard)?
2. Problem with BIOS (I have the latest one F4)?
3. Problem with Windows MBR?
4. Other not listed problem?

Thank you very much in advance, I appreciate any help.

I am guessing you are doing this for sata3 speed only , but you may not get those speeds if the 2nd PCIe slot does not support PCIe 2.0, which means the Onboard is just as fast.

there is some good PCIe Speed stuff in the top part of this review.

SSD Interface Comparison: PCI Express vs SATA

it seems you MB has only one PCIe 2.0 slot for the graphics card ( or it's poorly documented)

GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 775 - GA-E7AUM-DS2H (rev. 1.0)


did you research this or buy on impulse ?

Did you boot to Windows with card still plugged in and SSD on OnBoard Port , or is that a no go too?

Probably no#1 a nvidia vs Asmedia issue , since you aren't in windows yet it is not a driver issue , some of these cards state they may not work on Computers from before 2010 ie yours , see newegg product description below about the Bios not seeing the Ports on the Card.

Though you would need to install the Drivers in Windows BEFORE attaching the SSD to it , other wise it is likely to BSOD crash I think .
( so put SSD in onboard port , install drivers in Windows ,reboot swap sata cable to Asmedia Port if possible)

see here , and in the Reviews
SYBA SY-PEX40039 Plug-in Card SATA III Controller Card - Newegg.ca

good info here....
Single review: SYBA SY-PEX40039 Plug-in Card SATA III Controller Card - Newegg.ca

Thank you for your input!

Kbird said:

it seems you MB has only one PCIe 2.0 slot for the graphics card (or it's poorly documented)

Hmm, you are right. Only the x16 slot seems to be v. 2.0. I read the specifications several times before the purchase (on impulse, but a long one), but my mind has perceived wrong (missing) information. So this card is useless in terms of speed advantage.

Kbird said:

Probably no#1 a nvidia vs Asmedia issue , since you aren't in windows yet it is not a driver issue , some of these cards state they may not work on Computers from before 2010 ie yours , see newegg product description below about the Bios not seeing the Ports on the Card.

I didn't know that, very important information. My board is from 2008 and the last BIOS verson is from August 2009.

Kbird said:

Though you would need to install the Drivers in Windows BEFORE attaching the SSD to it , other wise it is likely to BSOD crash I think . ( so put SSD in onboard port , install drivers in Windows ,reboot swap sata cable to Asmedia Port if possible)

I tried to do that, but the controller was already visible in Windows 10 without an extra driver.

Thanks again, you were really helpful :)

I did some quick looking around at these type of cards last week and saw too many issues with them , even though I do have a 2nd PICe 2.0 Port , so decided it wasn't worth the hassle for my GB X58 board. The SSD's are in Raid 0 and I am not likely to see a doubling in speed anyway I figured.

Win 10 would of installed the drivers on boot for the card from it's "internal" Driver Store , that may or may not be a good thing as I found out with the ICH10R on the X58 , it was corrupting Win10 ( 4 times) with Drivers in the 13.x.x.x series but 11.2.).1006 is fine.

Might be worth doing a bit more research ...I came across the newegg post after googling the model no# from the ebay page.


KB

A solution that might work better is a 'pro' PCIe x4-x8 RAID SAS/SATA 3.0 card (Intel, Adaptec, LSI...). They are expensive controllers, but with more luck could be found a lot cheaper. However it doesn't help in my case, because I have just a single PCIe x1 1.0 port available free. And - forgot - my motherboard is too old :)
Still working fast and stable though...