NVMe shows as Removable in Windows

BrianInEngland · 2025-02-09T05:37:55-0500

New MSI board, the M2_2 slot has a Samsung 980 Pro in it, but it's showing as a removable drive in Windows
I checked the BIOS, it actually shows as Not present which is strange

Is there a way to make Windows consider the drive as non-removable? I've seen how to do it with SATA drives (storachi registry change), but not with an NVMe drive

Aramil · 2025-02-09T05:53:04-0500

Do you have thunderbolt support enabled? I know it sounds weird, but there have been a few boards where this happens, it's hidden somewhere in the bios. disabling it should, make it show as internal, something to do with PCI lanes shared.

example here

BrianInEngland · 2025-02-09T05:55:41-0500

Aramil said:
Do you have thunderbolt support enabled? I know it sounds weird, but there have been a few boards where this happens, it's hidden somewhere in the bios. disabling it should, make it show as internal, something to do with PCI lanes shared.

example here

I will investigate that. The NVMe slot does in fact share lanes with the USB4 controller. The drive will only run at x2 speed but I changed it to run at x4 which disabled the USB4 ports. There may be a setting I've not seen yet, this build is two days old and I've not looked at everything yet

BrianInEngland · 2025-02-09T06:24:22-0500

@Aramil there doesn't seem to be anything relating to Thunderbolt in the BIOS settings, all I can do is enable or disable the USB4 by changing the speed of the NVMe slot

Aramil · 2025-02-09T06:47:29-0500

PCI cards? Soundblaster card or USB?

Is it just one drive with the issue?

BrianInEngland · 2025-02-09T07:11:55-0500

Aramil said:
PCI cards? Soundblaster card or USB?

Is it just one drive with the issue?

Yes I have three NVMe drives, only the one using the shared-lanes slot is showing as external. The system drive and the 980 are on the CPU-linked lanes (both are gen 5 but the drives are gen 4)
The third NVMe is on a chipset-linked slot.

I have an internal sound card but that's on the chipset PCI x1 slot.

Rollback_Jockey · 2025-02-09T07:25:42-0500

BrianInEngland said:
New MSI board, the M2_2 slot has a Samsung 980 Pro in it, but it's showing as a removable drive in Windows
I checked the BIOS, it actually shows as Not present which is strange

Is there a way to make Windows consider the drive as non-removable? I've seen how to do it with SATA drives (storachi registry change), but not with an NVMe drive

Two of my internal hard drives are ejectable?

I noticed when ejecting a USB device today that on the pop up list for things I could eject are two internal SSDs. Having accidentally ejected a drive once before, there is no way I want to do it again because it was a PITA getting the drive to be recognized again. I know that there is a...

www.elevenforum.com

Aramil · 2025-02-09T07:29:13-0500

Yeah just had a look, disabling the USB should clear the lines, I cant see any thunderbolt options either.

Hot Swapping disabled?

The driver mentions in @Rollback_Jockey linked thread is a good shout, I have had all sorts of weirdness on Samsung and others drivers, maybe check that to.

What Bios are you on? Latest was a few weeks ago? I can only assume that its the bios at fault maybe?

BrianInEngland · 2025-02-09T07:54:57-0500

Aramil said:
Yeah just had a look, disabling the USB should clear the lines, I cant see any thunderbolt options either.

Hot Swapping disabled?

The driver mentions in @Rollback_Jockey linked thread is a good shout, I have had all sorts of weirdness on Samsung and others drivers, maybe check that to.

What Bios are you on? Latest was a few weeks ago? I can only assume that its the bios at fault maybe?

Can't see any option for Hot swapping, not even for the SATA drives (NVMe is the issue here).
Yes on BIOS A24, the latest

Is there a registry setting I can use? I know there's one for SATA drives that can force Windows into making the drives non-removable. Any suggestion from the magician that is @Brink ?

Brink · 2025-02-09T09:32:02-0500

BrianInEngland said:
Can't see any option for Hot swapping, not even for the SATA drives (NVMe is the issue here).
Yes on BIOS A24, the latest

Is there a registry setting I can use? I know there's one for SATA drives that can force Windows into making the drives non-removable. Any suggestion from the magician that is @Brink ?

Hello,

This usually happens when the HotPlug setting for the NVME drive has been enabled in UEFI/BIOS. You'll need to find that setting and disable it. Possibly under Advanced mode/settings.

BrianInEngland · 2025-02-09T10:19:22-0500

Brink said:
Hello,

This usually happens when the HotPlug setting for the NVME drive has been enabled in UEFI/BIOS. You'll need to find that setting and disable it. Possibly under Advanced mode/settings.

I don't think my board has that setting, not even for SATA drives

p5200 · 2025-02-09T10:59:18-0500

What model board do you have?

BrianInEngland · 2025-02-09T11:03:13-0500

p5200 said:
What model board do you have?

MSI MEG X870E Godlike

Catnip · 2025-02-09T11:42:53-0500

BrianInEngland said:
MSI MEG X870E Godlike

OMG you should definitely have that option on that board.

Dronix · 2025-02-09T12:02:46-0500

BrianInEngland said:
but it's showing as a removable drive in Windows

Is it not duplicated in the Explorer Navigation Bar?

BrianInEngland · 2025-02-09T12:22:45-0500

Dronix said:
Is it not duplicated in the Explorer Navigation Bar?

Yes it shows under This PC and also in the removable drives section

BrianInEngland · 2025-02-09T12:23:40-0500

Catnip said:
OMG you should definitely have that option on that board.

You would think so on a £1200 motherboard! But it may be because of the fact that it's sharing lanes with the USB4 controller and needs to be hot-pluggable

Wonder what would happen if that slot had the Windows boot partition on it!

BrianInEngland · 2025-02-09T12:24:39-0500

Brink said:
Hello,

This usually happens when the HotPlug setting for the NVME drive has been enabled in UEFI/BIOS. You'll need to find that setting and disable it. Possibly under Advanced mode/settings.

Would changing this setting work? The other two NVMe drives have a value of '1' for these settings.
Assuming there's a way in the registry to change it of course...

The drive shows as 'Not present' in the BIOS

Brink · 2025-02-09T12:55:39-0500

BrianInEngland said:
Would changing this setting work? The other two NVMe drives have a value of '1' for these settings.
Assuming there's a way in the registry to change it of course...

The drive shows as 'Not present' in the BIOS

Won't hurt to try..

BrianInEngland · 2025-02-09T13:14:14-0500

Brink said:
Won't hurt to try..

Any idea where I would find this in the registry?

NVMe shows as Removable in Windows

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