Configure 2 Disks, Nvme and Sata3 in Windows 10

Hi and sorry for my English...
I have a PC with a solid NVME disk in PCI-e mode connected to its M2 port. I have installed Windows 10 Pro and I have configured the bios so that the 1st boot option is the windows boot manager that is on that NVME disk.

Every time the PC started it was very fast to enter Windows and the disk manager appeared as disk 0.

Up to here everything worked perfectly !!!

The problem starts when I connect the second HD Sata3 disk that I want it for data.
Now when I start the PC it takes a lot to start Windows 10 (which is in the NVME) and when I go to the disk manager to initialize the HD Sata and format the solid disk NVME that was disk 0 when I was alone, now it appears now as a disk 1 and the new HD Sata that I am going to format appears as disk 0.
When connecting this HD Sata in the PC the numbering of the discs has been changed when the logical thing is that if the NVME was disk 0 it would follow in 0 and when adding the Hd Sata it would appear as disk 1.

And the other problem is that now the boot is much much slower.
In my opinion it is as if I were looking for the boot on disk 0 which is now the Sata and when it is not found out to disk 1 which is now the NVME although in Bios I have as the 1st boot option the NVME where the Windows is boot manager
The boot should be on disk 0 but the problem is that when I only connect the solid disk NVME in PCI-e mode it recognizes it as disk 0 but when I connect the 2 disks (NVME mode PCI-E and HD Sata3) it changes the order of the discs and the disc 0 that was the Nvme happens to disk 1 and the HD Sata3 that I have not yet formatted goes to disc 0 and it generates slowness to me when starting.

The board is an Asus Maximus XI Hero (wifi).
Sata's PCH Storage Configuration is in AHCI
Solid NVME disk is in PCI-E mode on M2 port _1

I hope you can help me because I've tried everything.

I have this exact issue, will watch this thread. Am back to using just the m.2 pci-e nvme drive for now.

JasonGreen said:

Hi and sorry for my English...
I have a PC with a solid NVME disk in PCI-e mode connected to its M2 port. I have installed Windows 10 Pro and I have configured the bios so that the 1st boot option is the windows boot manager that is on that NVME disk.

Hi JasonGreen,

First off I'm a bit confused with this statement.... "a solid NVME disk in PCI-e mode". Not sure what this actually means??? With that what is the brand, make and model of the NVMe SSD drive?

As for disk order, I have to agree with Ken in that It doesn't matter the disk number as long it's the boot disk. My NVMe boot disk is listed as 3, whereas my SSD backup drive is listed as 0 and there are no issues whatsoever. So for that, I wouldn't worry about disk order.

As for the slow boot times, you might go over your motherboard's owner manual to insure you aren't using a SATA port that's also being used by the NVMe drive. However though what typically happens is the board will disable certain SATA ports depending on the m.2 port used. That means certain SATA ports won't function with when certain m.2 ports are used. The owner's manual should have a matrix similar to this showing what SATA/PCIe ports are affected depending on which m.2 port is used (you board has two m.2 ports)....


All that said, if things are running correctly, you shouldn't be experiencing longer boot times when adding a drive unless there's an issue with the drive. And the bottom line is the disk order wouldn't (shouldn't) make a difference here.

Let us know.

Thanks for your help Caledon Ken, signus21 and "HI" Johnhoh
To answer signus21
In my case the sata port is not disabled by the M2 because I had already checked that in the manual's motherboard before connecting the NVME in the port M2. Anyway I tried at all sata ports to connect the hd sata and I had the same problem.
Thanks for your help

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To answer Caledon Ken
About the boot time... when the Nvme is alone in port M2 it takes 6 seconds
when I connect the hd sata also, to go to Windows 10 it takes 1 minute ang 10 seconds, and the sata is not even initialized it is only connected to the power cable and the sata cable.
You tell me "Any chance your HD was an old boot disk and may have left over boot partitions that the system is interrogating"
But this is not possible because the disk is new and is not initialized at Windows disk manager because I can not. It appears this message:
"The specified disk is not convertible because its size is less than the minimum size required for GPT disks"

I upload pictures about that:
Box
Box

I hope you can help me because I am desperate, even if I want to Initialize the sata it's no possible, appears the message...

JasonGreen said:

To answer signus21
In my case the sata port is not disabled by the M2 because I had already checked that in the manual's motherboard before connecting the NVME in the port M2. Anyway I tried at all sata ports to connect the hd sata and I had the same problem.

Yeah, I suspected the port wasn't disabled, but needed to make sure. Anyway you did not answer my question... what's "a solid NVME disk in PCI-e mode"?

JasonGreen said:

To answer Caledon Ken

About the boot time... when the Nvme is alone in port M2 it takes 6 seconds
when I connect the hd sata also, to go to Windows 10 it takes 1 minute ang 10 seconds, and the sata is not even initialized it is only connected to the power cable and the sata cable.

Something's wrong then as your boot times shouldn't increase by simply adding a drive. With that, are you sure there's nothing wrong with the drive? I've go 5 drives (SSD's) in my system and my boot time are pretty quick. I'd guess around 5-8 seconds.

You tell me "Any chance your HD was an old boot disk and may have left over boot partitions that the system is interrogating"

I can't speak for Ken, but I can tell you what you ask doesn't work that way. You can add a blank drive and the system should boot the same as if the drive was a full fledged OS drive.

I upload pictures about that:
Box
Box

Don't know what that site is, but you could post your images here - How to Upload and Post Screenshots and Files at Ten Forums

My reply is also in green.

Let us know.

Caledon Ken said:

How big is this HD you are trying to connect?

Do you have an external enclosure you can place HD in. Maybe this drive is just bad. I know it is new but that does not mean 110% it is working.

Is your M.2 initialized as GPT or MBR.

From your manual. Page 1-14 shows SATA port numbers and page 1-25 says SATA port 2 is disable with the M.2 port you are using.

Just FYI, but if the port is disabled, the drive wouldn't be recognized or seen (not even in the BIOS). At least that's how it works on my Gigabyte board.

And yes, there are plenty of questions with very little info. The other one is, is the BIOS (UEFI) set to AHCI or IDE?

To Signus21
Both disks are new. There is not old boot disk and the sata drive is not initialized at all so it's impossible to have left over boot partitions inside. The only disk configured is the NVMe with the Windows 10 installed and it is the first option boot configuration in Bios.

About solid NVME disk in PCI-e mode...
I mean that I have a disk SSD NVME in M2 Port. This disk could be configured in Bios in sata mode or pci-e mode. The native mode is pci-e, you can see in bios: Advanced/onboard devices configuration
The Nvme means Non-Volatile Memory Express but you know that better than me, I do not have a lot of knowledge, sorry.

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To Caledon Ken
My Hd Sata has 10TB but I can not initialize, appears the message you know...
The NVMe is initialized as GPT and if I want initialize the Sata appears the message:
"The specified disk is not convertible because its size is less than the minimum size required for GPT disks"

About you say "SATA port 2 is disable with the M.2 port you are using" This is true! But I use SATA port 1 and I tried to connect in Sata port 4 and 5 and it dosn't matter, the same probleme.

I will check with external device and I goint to try with a partition programs.
What you recommend me?
Acronis Disk Director or Easeus Partition Pro or Aomei Partition? which one do you prefer?