[SUCCESS] Booting 950 Pro NVMe on GA‑Z77X‑UP5 TH

[danmcq]

I wanted to share how I was able to get my Z77 system (Gigabyte GA‑Z77X‑UP5 TH motherboard) to successfully boot off of a Samsung 950 Pro NVMe SSD using a PCI Express adapter. I know there are several others using this same motherboard for their builds, so hopefully someone will find this information useful. The BIOS on this board doesn't have built-in support for NVMe devices, but I was able to use the AMI MMtool to extract the NVMe modules from a Z97 BIOS (GA-Z97X-UD7 TH) and insert them into the latest (F12) BIOS for the GA‑Z77X‑UP5 TH. With the modified BIOS installed, the Samsung 950 successfully shows up as a boot device in the BIOS (see the screenshots). With RehabMan's HackrNVMeFamily-10_11_6.kext and via Clover UEFI, I am currently booting off the 950 without any issues. Note that for UEFI booting, the 950 shows in the bios as simply "UEFI: Hard Drive". I've attached my modified BIOS to this post in the hope that others will find it useful. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like clarification on any of this.

The adapter and NVMe SSD I am using:
Ableconn PEXM2-SSD M.2 NGFF PCIe SSD to PCI Express 3.0 x4 Host Adapter Card
Samsung 950 PRO Series - 512GB PCIe NVMe

NVMe patching script by RehabMan:
https://github.com/RehabMan/patch-nvme

The guides I used to modify the BIOS:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1571271/...rt-on-any-ami-uefi-bios-with-an-intel-chipset
http://www.win-raid.com/t871f16-Gui...for-Intel-Chipset-systems-from-Series-up.html

Modified GA‑Z77X‑UP5 TH F12 BIOS attached

 

[futurusx]

Just wanted to say that I have this board and will be trying this out very soon. Thanks for all your hard work!

 

[Stork]

Although I'm using the F12J BIOS in Thunderball, I'm going to give your BIOS a try after I get the M.2 NVME SSD (can't decide on the Samsung 960 Pro or the 960 EVO - choices...choices...sigh) and the adapter.

Since you have experience with the BIOS mod'ing, please take a look at modifying the F12J BIOS. F12J.mod9 > http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/48085-gigabyte-modified-bios.html

 

[danmcq]

Just wanted to give a quick update. The HackrNVMeFamily kext I was originally using on El Capitan was not compatible after upgrading to MacOS Sierra. I'm now using the IONVMeFamily.kext by Pike R. Alpha and all is well. You can find the patch here:

https://pikeralpha.wordpress.com/2016/06/27/nvmefamily-kext-bin-patch-data

 

[danmcq]

Since you have experience with the BIOS mod'ing, please take a look at modifying the F12J BIOS. F12J.mod9 > http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/48085-gigabyte-modified-bios.html

Next week when I have some time I'll see about adding the NVMe modules to the F12J BIOS. I'll keep you posted.

 

[Stork]

Next week when I have some time I'll see about adding the NVMe modules to the F12J BIOS. I'll keep you posted.

Thank you.

 

[Stork]

danmcq, Have you had a chance to look into mod'ing the F12J BIOS?

 

[Stork]

danmcq, your modified BIOS worked like a charm. BTW, I asked if you would please modify the F12J BIOS is because I don't have Windoze installed on any of my systems, and, thus, can't make the change myself. TIA.

 

[nicke85]

I have Z77X-UP7 with 3770k and second platofrm is X58 Asus Rampage III Gene which is non-UEFI bios with 48Gb ram , Xeon W3690 and Samsung 950 Pro 512gb in PCIE Adapter. I must say at first that Samsung 950 Pro is the only avaiable NVME disk with Option Rom (OROM) in it self so it will boot even on oldest motherboard with PCIE 1.0 only )) thats realy cool because it will be visible and bootable even in Intel P965 mbo )
Second I want to ask does somebody can make modded Z77X-UP7 bios with fully nvme support with RAID 0 to can boot newest 960 Pro?
Best regards )

 

[aufdenschlips]

danmcq, your modified BIOS worked like a charm. BTW, I asked if you would please modify the F12J BIOS is because I don't have Windoze installed on any of my systems, and, thus, can't make the change myself. TIA.

Just a FYI for interested parties:

There is a (I believe) WINE-Mod of MMTool for OS X out in the wild. Have used it for adding NVMe to BIOS versions for a while. It's actually quite simple and painless if you disregard the atrocious Windows interface.

I hope that helps someone.