Installing M.2 nvme on Acer Aspire GX-785-UR1D

Pete42

Hello I purchased a crucial P5 NVMe M.2 ssd, have installed it into motherboard , but it is not recognized in bios. 

I used the Acronis software to clone my hdd to the new SSD, but not able to see it in bios. Now attempting to wipe the ssd and start over the acronis clean tool freezes during scrub and I cannot wipe the ssd, or see drives in management tool. Feels like I’m going backwards and I need some help getting this ssd running. 

Please help, let me know what I need to provide 

Pete42

System info. Thank you for your help in advance.

billsey

The GX-785 supports a SATA 3.0 SSD in the M.2 slot, not NVMe.

Pete42

When I purchased it, I ran it through crucials compatibility tool and checked it with their customer service, they said this is the correct one?https://www.crucial.com/ssd/p5/CT1000P5SSD8/CT18148617

This is the link with Acer GX-785UR1D model included into specs

Are you sure I have incorrect ssd?

Pete42

Can you direct me to the correct part if I purchased the wrong thing?

ttttt

@Pete42
Unluckily, like @Billsey said, your M.2 slot cannot support M.2 NVMe SSD. Try to return your M.2 NVMe SSD if possible and get a M.2 SATA SSD instead. You can add a M.2 SATA SSD to a previously unused M.2 port this way. Chances are a B + M key M.2 SATA SSD will do it.
If you can take a close up picture of the M.2 connector at the motherboard and post it here, we can tell for sure what key is that.

Pete42

I’ve continued to attempt to run it and after safemode it seems I may have gotten somewhere. How do I check that I’m fully booting off ssd and not hdd? Unplug hdd? Or any less brute force way? 

I ran benchmark and it said I am running Ssd but performance was slower due to some window files on partitions still on hdd? 

The slot is behind the graphics card otherwise I’d post a photo 

ttttt

@Pete42
Yes, you can unplug the spinning HDD to make sure the PC is running on the M.2 SSD only.
Another way you can tell is by listening whether you can hear the spinning HDD running or not. If your W10 if running from the M.2 SSD, it should not make any noise. 
Since you said you have some files on the spinning HDD, disconnecting the spinning HDD temporary is a better idea.

brummyfan2

Hi @Pete42
Your SSD will not run at advertised speeds(3400/3000), it may run at half of that speed may be due to only 2lanes enabled, you can check in my link below that the advertised speed for ADATA XPG SX8200 is 3500/3000 but the user gets only 2536/1904, I would suggest you run a benchmark program like Crystal Disk mark and post the snip of the results, I guess that you will get around 1800/1500 Read/Write speeds.
Acer Aspire GX-785 Performance Results - UserBenchmark
XPG SX8200 Pro PCIe Gen3x4 M.2 2280 Solid State Drive | XPG

Pete42

Hi everryone, thank you very much for your input. I am a novice so every little bit helps to try and gather the brain storm lightning power to get through this first cup of coffee.

It appears I am running off the ssd. Though if I unplug hdd it will not boot on ssd alone. Also upon unplugging my hdd 3-5 times it finally distinguished it in bios instead of calling it bootable drive ( same as ssd and it was frustrating to know what you were running) to the name of actual toshia drive.

The noise is minimal, almost silent but there is some so the disk must be spinning in the hdd? 

So here is the question, how do I identify the problem in booting from ssd? If my assumption is correct that boot files are missing how do I get those from hdd to sdd?

https://postimg.cc/Y4D6ZGyM

UserBenchmarks: Game 42%, Desk 86%, Work 33%

CPU: Intel Core i5-7400 - 75.7%
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 580 - 50.8%
SSD: Crucial P5 3D NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB - 271.4%
HDD: Toshiba DT01ACA100 1TB - 82.7%
RAM: V02D4L88GB1G81G82400 Micron 8ATF1G64AZ-2G3B1 16GB - 47.1%
MBD: Acer Aspire GX-785

[url=https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/34726812]UserBenchmarks: Game 42%, Desk 86%, Work 33%[/url]
CPU: [url=https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Intel-Core-i5-7400/Rating/3886]Intel Core i5-7400[/url] - [b]75.7%[/b]
GPU: [url=https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/312592/RadeonTM-RX-580]AMD Radeon RX 580[/url] - [b]50.8%[/b]
SSD: [url=https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/1217319/CT1000P5SSD8]Crucial P5 3D NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB[/url] - [b]271.4%[/b]
HDD: [url=https://hdd.userbenchmark.com/Toshiba-DT01ACA100-1TB/Rating/2737]Toshiba DT01ACA100 1TB[/url] - [b]82.7%[/b]
RAM: [url=https://ram.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/1338811/V02D4L88GB1G81G82400-Micron-8ATF1G64AZ-2G3B1-16GB]V02D4L88GB1G81G82400 Micron 8ATF1G64AZ-2G3B1 16GB[/url] - [b]47.1%[/b]
MBD: [url=https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Acer-Aspire-GX-785/52498]Acer Aspire GX-785[/url]

Pete42

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IMG_7983.jpg

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If ssd is run alone(hdd unplugged), this error comes on.

Pete42

when I boot off sdd only, with hdd disconnected.

Pete42

So when I installed the ssd, i called it M.

Now when I did the disk test, I have C and D. I assumed C was HDD as always but it performed slower. So, C is now SDD and D is HDD according to performance alone.  Windows cannot boot off sdd but with both it does, and seems to have called SDD its main C drive. What can I do to have windows fully run just off SDD?

If it is too crazy complicated, what is best way to do clean install if the windows I have came preinstalled on the machine and I do not have access to windows disk/unique code.

Pete42

Test Results

ttttt

@Pete42
The test result of the drive C: indicates the performance of PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD. Many people say GX-785-UR1D M.2 SSD has SATA3 performance. Now, we can see it is up to NVMe speed.
Something is not quite right with your cloning process. I would suggest you to do it again using WIN 10 "Create Image File" from the original spinning HDD and then restore the image file to the M.2 NVMe SSD  (disconnect  the the spinning HDD to restore).
After restoring, set your BIOS to optimized default before the first M.2 NVMe SSD boot.
If you need further help, don't hesitate to ask.

Pete42

Thanks for suggestion to install windows from old drive, when attempting to create image I have an interesting issue.

The only drive available is D, according to our benchmark this is now designated HDD, even though i designated SDD to be named M ( it got changed to C and hdd became D). I cannot make a copy onto C drive.

C drive has the windows Icon, so that designates that OS is running from SDD (C) ?

Pete42

I see once I clicked on D, it shows me that C will be backed up with it.  So what do I need to do here, is this correct?

ttttt

@Pete42

When you opened up the PC, was there another open SATA3 connector on the motherboard and an additional SATA power connector from the PSU ? If so, you can connect an old spinning HDD of 250GB+ (as most people may have some left over HDD from old PC) for this image storage.
If not, I would recommend buying an 500GB  EXTERNAL USB 3.0 HDD dedicated for such purpose. I think this is the most efficient way to backup the system.

Do not try to use USB flash drive for this purpose, as WIN 10 will consider it an invalid location to create the image file.
I have not tried using DVD disc for image, as 233GB will take more than 50 discs, even if it works it will be very time consuming.

To avoid confusion, try to take out the M.2 NVMe SSD temporarily  when try to create the image file and put it back when restoring the image.

Pete42

After the image installed, I clicked finish and wasnt sure where it went or what to do. I did shut down and unplug my hdd. It booted up without it fully on ssd!!!! It booted so fast I forgot that I shut down, good lord sweet googa-mooga. This is really exciting post pain and suffering of getting it to run. Now would it be safe to plug HDD back in and attempt to wipe it for storage? I have made a separate image on a USB Passport drive for backup.

billsey

Yes, once you have booted fully from the SSD the system will remember that and not boot from the HDD unless there's a failure or you use the F12 boot menu. Once you are booted from the SSD with both drive in, fire up Disk Management and delete the partitions from the HDD (make double sure it is the HDD, not the SSD!) and then create one big data partition on the HDD.

ttttt

@Pete42
Sometimes when the PC has two Windows on different HDD/SSD , that means two Windows Boot Managers and may cause problems. If you can take the risk: (may not work, depending on your luck)
1) Connect both HDD and the M.2 NVMe drives
2) When boot up, hit F12 key three times a second until you see the BIOS screen
3) Move to the Boot Tab, scroll down and find the HDD Priority section, move the M.2 NVMe ahead of the HDD
4) Save changes and exit
From the boot up speed you can tell whether you are booting from the SSD
5) After boot up, type "Disk Management" from the Windows Task Bar Search Field
6) From that page you can see two drives are there, identify which one is the old HDD
7) Highlight the old HDD and format it in NTFS format (Be careful, make sure it is the old HDD you are going to format)

If this doesn't work, post the question here and we can try something else.