Resolving Issues with Samsung NVMe Driver Installation

Are you experiencing difficulties installing the Samsung NVMe driver on your system? If so, this article may be able to help you resolve the issue.

After researching and troubleshooting, I found a procedure that worked for me. My machine was unable to recover the disk and would not boot until I made some changes in the BIOS setup. Specifically, I needed to switch back to RAID mode from AHCI. 'samsung nvm express driver v1.1.exe'

The key takeaway here is that Windows OS will fail if you change from RAID to AHCI without putting it into safe mode first. Additionally, if your BIOS shows RAID instead of AHCI, the Samsung NVMe Driver 3.3.exe will not work and Samsung Magician will have limited functionality.

I encountered this issue on a Lenovo 720s-141kb (81BD) laptop after upgrading the disk with a Samsung SSD 970 EVO plus. The process of changing from RAID to AHCI was more complicated than I expected, and my laptop did not automatically handle it. In fact, it refused to boot, so I may need to reinstall the OS at a later date.

For those who are mounting NVMe SSD on the M.2 slot of their mainboard, please switch from PCI to M.2 in the BIOS option called 'PCIe slot bandwidth' and the driver installation process will detect NVMe SSD. Also, check if RAID mode is set as some motherboards have the default RAID mode.

To resolve this issue, go to BIOS Settings / SATA Configuration and switch to AHCI mode. Additionally, please update your motherboard drivers, including the chipset driver.

If you are experiencing issues with installing the Samsung NVMe driver, we suggest taking the following actions:

1. Check if NAND/Storage Remapping is enabled in your BIOS settings.

2. Ensure that PCH Storage Configuration is set to 'AHCI Mode' in your BIOS settings.

3. If you are using a PCIe slot directly connected to UTC, please note that the Windows operating system cannot load the driver in this configuration.

The Samsung NVMe driver supports Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10. If you have any further issues, we recommend contacting Samsung Memory Support for assistance.

Samsung nvm express driver v1.1.exe