Drivers needed for a Samsung mSATA 512GB SSD (PM841 ??)

alphanumeric · 03 Apr 2017

ship69 said:

But I am unconvinced about 128GB being anything like enough.
I bought a new desktop PC a couple of weeks ago and even though I store very little media a such, I have already used 105GB.

From memory, I am 99% sure that my laptop can't fit another SSD in. (See photo)

Attachment 127998

It all depends on how much you install. There are other factors too, factory OEM installs will have hidden recovery partitions that will steal some of your space. You know how to swap drives now so you could just order a new larger drive and swap it in. Then do one more clean install to that drive.

Not a lot of laptops have dual drive bays. My ASUS K75DE has a 17.3 inch screen and is a bit of a monster. The extra space left room for a second drive bay. When I bought my SSD's they were still on the expansive side. That's why I went 128 and 256. If I was doing it now it would be 128 and 512 or 256 and 512. When possible I like to keep my DATA on a separate drive instead of just a separate partition. The dual drive bays let me do that so I did it.

alphanumeric · 03 Apr 2017

ship69 said:

Fwiw, I'm slightly confused myself about what was said, when. What I can say is that I tried booting both from a DVD and from a thumb drive (once I finally worked out a way to get the darned thing to be visible to the MediaCreationTool), and both routes got stuck at exactly the same place, which looked pretty much like this:

Attachment 127999

Personally, I think its a drive failure issue, not a missing driver issue. Show Details likely lists multiple reasons why you are where you are. You pick (guess) which one it is.

ship69 · 03 Apr 2017

alphanumeric said:

If you wanted to, you could boot from the DVD in that same optical drive and see if you get the no driver found message. It won't hurt your current install, you just quit before it does anything. If you still get that message then we know for sure its looking for a driver for the optical drive or USB 3, not for the hard drive interface. If you don't get that message then it was due to what ever s going on with the other hard drive.

I guess it is safer for me to use one of the USB 2.0 ports in that case, rather than the USB 3.0 port, yes?

OK I'm still running the Windows updates, but after that finishes I'll have another go at booting from the DVD. Does it matter if I am using the 64bit or 32bit version of the Windows 10 recovery DVD? (I now have both).

clam1952 · 03 Apr 2017

ship69 said:

Interesting idea. So this would enable me to run the 512GB SSD from a USB Port, yes?
Maybe my local Curries/ComputerWorld might have such a thing...
I guess we could find a way to verify if the SSD was faulty in this way, yes?

Yes it should enable you to confirm if it's working or not.
Probably need Amazon which seems to have quite a few for something like that though.

alphanumeric · 03 Apr 2017

ship69 said:

I guess it is safer for me to use one of the USB 2.0 ports in that case, rather than the USB 3.0 port, yes?

OK I'm still running the Windows updates, but after that finishes I'll have another go at booting from the DVD. Does it matter if I am using the 64bit or 32bit version of the Windows 10 recovery DVD? (I now have both).

No shouldn't matter, I'd use the 64 bit. Try both if you want.

ship69 · 03 Apr 2017

alphanumeric said:

It all depends on how much you install. There are other factors too, factory OEM installs will have hidden recovery partitions that will steal some of your space. You know how to swap drives now so you could just order a new larger drive and swap it in. Then do one more clean install to that drive.

If it comes to it, I guess I will just have to.
But are Digicare correct in saying that Samsung don't recommend installing Windows 10 AT ALL on my PC "due to compatible [SIC] issues with drivers"
- or do we think it's a problem with any 512GB SSD,
- or a problem with my model of SSD...?

Meanwhile I have run all the updates and Windows 10 x64 is running fine on my 128GB SSD.
There are no "!"s visible in the Device Manager.

Drivers needed for a Samsung mSATA 512GB SSD (PM841 ??)-delme-device.jpg

ship69 · 03 Apr 2017

alphanumeric said:

If you wanted to, you could boot from the DVD in that same optical drive and see if you get the no driver found message. It won't hurt your current install, you just quit before it does anything. If you still get that message then we know for sure its looking for a driver for the optical drive or USB 3, not for the hard drive interface. If you don't get that message then it was due to what ever s going on with the other hard drive.

OK I have booted off the DVD drive even though the 128GB SSD is in place.
Having installed Windows 10 x64 onto the 128GB SSD, I now find that Windows created a special new 500MB partition, that I swear wasn't there before! Fwiw, it is still saying "Windows can't be installed" on either of the two partitions that are now visible. The reasons given are because it has an MBR partition table, whereas on EFI systems windows can only be installed to GPT disks. I have no idea what any of that means, but the fact is that Window HAS been installed on the physical disk because I just ran it.

I have no idea if the above is a problem or whether it is just a complicated way for Windows to say that it has already been installed on this disk(!)

Drivers needed for a Samsung mSATA 512GB SSD (PM841 ??)-delme-partition.jpg

EDIT: Meanwhile I have been back in touch with Samsung via Digicare's phone number and they are going to double-check their official position on 512GB SSDs with my computer.

OK I'm out of time. More tomorrow.

alphanumeric · 03 Apr 2017

The 500 MB System Reserved partition is normal, Windows 10 puts it there. It won't have a drive letter, that's normal, and won't show up in file explorer. You installed in Legacy mode though, I don't see any EFI partition. If you had installed in UEFI mode there would have also been a hidden EFI partition. Is AHCI enabled in the BIOS? You should have seen two boot entries for your thumb drive, UEFI Kingston DataTraveller (UEFI Mode) and just Kingston DataTraveller (Legacy Mode) The "cannot be installed message" is because the first install was done in Legacy mode and the one your seeing the message in is UEFI Mode. At that point you could have deleted all the partitions and installed in the unallocated space. It would then repartition in GPT and finished installing in UEFI mode.

alphanumeric · 03 Apr 2017

Forgot to mention, how the thumb drive is setup has a bearing on whether you can install in UEFI mode or not. A lot of PC's will only install in Legacy if the thumb drive is formatted in NTFS, it needs to be FAT 32 for UEFI mode. Mess up a setting in RUFUS and the same thing will happen. That's one of the reasons I'm not to fussy for that utility.
No such restrictions for optical media though, as long as its bootable you can usually install in UEFI mode no problem.

ship69 · 03 Apr 2017

I am still pretty confused about these settings. I swear did change them but out of desperation I may have hit the "Default" button. Is there an idiots guide to what all these acronyms mean (and which ones I want!)
- EFI
- UEFI OS / mode
- CSM OS
- MBR partition table
- GPT
- ACHI

1. What is Legacy mode? And is it a problem if I install in that mode?

2. How do I know which mode I have installed using?

2. The BIOS settings are as follows:
Advanced tab
==> ACHI: Auto
Boot tab
==> OS Mode Selection: "CSM and UEFI POS"

On this occasion I am 99% sure that installed the entire OS using the Windows 10 x64 Recovery DVD.

In a way it doesn't matter because I am not planning to use this 128GB SSD as it's way too small for me, but it will matter next time when I get an SSD of sensible size.