Nvme drive not being detected as boot drive by bios. Trying to do a fresh install of windows.
Posted by Relevant-Usual783@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 23 comments
Just upgraded pretty much my entire PC and finally bit the bullet and made the jump to an nvme drive.
I know my motherboard detects that there is something in that PCIe slot, since it shows up along with my graphics card in the pcie expansions, but it’s not being detected as a boot drive even after wiping and formatting the drive and installing windows via USB.
The crazy thing is that when I had my HDD installed, the nvme would show up as an eligible boot drive, however, there was no windows installed on it to boot. But now that I’ve removed the HDD, it’s not showing up in the eligible boot drives.
Fast-Acanthisitta534@reddit
Hey I found the solution to anyone hows having the same problem (and you just set everything as every post said), you just need to go to your bios settings / tools / security erase, then select your nvme and it will work! (I tried first from deleting any partition on the windows installer but it didn’t work! So do it from your bios! )
Thommyknocker@reddit
Your drive is detected by bios correct? But windows installer is not detecting it?
Relevant-Usual783@reddit (OP)
Windows installer detects it and allows me to install windows. The drive is also recognized as a “Peripheral” in bios. But the boot sequence only recognizes the USB drive that has the Windows installation media as a bootable drive.
If I disconnect the USB after installing windows and reboot the pc, it just boots straight into bios.
I used my friend’s pc to ensure I had a clean USB and fresh Windows installation media.
I’ve made sure the drive is in GPT format. I’ve disabled CSM support. Ive set the M.2 slot to read as gen4 to match the SSD.
At this point, I’m about to say fuck it and just return the SSD and stick with my old HDD. I guess faster load times just aren’t for me.
Thommyknocker@reddit
It's more than likely a drive issue and you should proceed with a warranty claim on the drive.
But some things to try first. Since you have the HDD that works install windows there and then try mounting the SSD as a secondary drive. If I does mount and work you can find the manufacturs drive utility and see if it's reporting errors. If not try creating a Linux bootable and installing that onto the SSD. Just to see if to see if it gets detected with a different bootloader.
Relevant-Usual783@reddit (OP)
So, I restarted the pc after enabling CSM.
The SSD now shows as a bootable drive.
However, when i remove the USB drive after going through the windows installation, it boots to a black screen that essentially just says “no bootable drive”. But going into bios the SSD still registers as a boot drive.
I also noticed that when I have the USB drive plugged in, and edit the boot priority in bios, the USB drive says UEFI while the SSD does not.
Thommyknocker@reddit
Windows installed in legacy mode for some reason thinking it was a bios not uefi supported device. I think i ran into this long ago with the windows media creation tool.
Attempt reinstalling windows with CSM on. Or when that fails create new insulation media with Rufus completely disabling legacy support. If you Google around there a few fixes for this issue.
Relevant-Usual783@reddit (OP)
Yeah I’ve tried pretty much everything I’ve found on Google. I’ve been dealing with this for 24 hours now.
I’m just gonna throw the whole fucking thing out the window.
Cute-Championship-64@reddit
you ever solve this?
d00mm4r1n3@reddit
Set the NVME as a bootable drive in the BIOS. If all else fails clear the CMOS to reset everything to default. The clear CMOS jumper is next to the front panel connector.
Relevant-Usual783@reddit (OP)
That’s the problem.
Bios recognizes that there is something connected to the M.2A slot. Windows installer recognizes that it is indeed a storage device. But according to bios, I have no bootable drives.
ghunny00910@reddit
Dude I’m going through this exact same thing and this is the only post on the web that sort of describes my situation. Proxmox with a Q670 cwwk mobo. Two bottom NVMe slots worked just fine and been booting for weeks now optimizing power and figuring out what I can and cannot use.
When I tested my 8 bay 2.5” data ssd rack with the two SFF ports. All good with the bottom NVMe slots. Then I tried throwing in a PCIe nic+NVMe card and this started happening. At first I was seeing only the nics being in the boot lost, but now I can’t get anything. CMOS restart didn’t work.
Gonna try Ubuntu usb boot and checking uwfi boot manager and general health of NVMe (the bios recognizes them, just not as a boot). If not, then hoping a bios flash works. Wish me luck!
_mayapapaya_@reddit
Did anything work for you? I’m having the same issue right now.
doodool_talaa@reddit
We're you able to figure out anything?
_mayapapaya_@reddit
I wound up plugging my SSD into a friend's computer's NVMe slot and ran Samsung Magician. Turned out my SSD failed and had written nearly 300TB, no clue why. I had to get a new SSD
12fa1@reddit
Did you find any solutions? I have a kingston sata ssd that had windows 10, and I just installed a nvme m2 with windows 11, somehow it boots windows 11, even though is not shown as bootable device, and the bootable device is set as the kingston. I removed windows 10 from msconfig, so it no longer asks me to select a OS. But still, not being detected as bootable device on the bios
ShaquilleNoPeel@reddit
Did anything work for you? Currently going through this.
ballsnbutt@reddit
dog my nvme ssd is only recognized as a boot drive if no sata drives are plugged in. Weird thing is, it still shows up in bios, just not as a bootable option. Still boots tho so idk, just a QoL change for me at this point, not a necessary thing. I do wonder if it's somehow choking performance though
Hofnaerrchen@reddit
Sounds like you did install windows while your HDD still was connected and the boatloader ended up on the HDD.
Relevant-Usual783@reddit (OP)
Nope, I removed the HDD before installing and have gone through the wipe/format/install process about 4 times now with no luck.
I just looked at my motherboard’s manual (Gigabyte B850 Aorus Elite Wifi7) and it says that the M.2 slots only support M.2 PCIe SSD’s. It also mentions that there are “only two types of M.2”, SATA and PCIe. I know for a fact my SSD is an nvme drive (WD Black SN850X) so I’m not sure what that’s all about.
magginoodle@reddit
Is it set to UEFI in bios?
Relevant-Usual783@reddit (OP)
Yes, I made triple sure that everything was set up for Win11.
magginoodle@reddit
Plug back hdd and boot it up and then check partitions. There might be a partial split where some boot is on hdd and some on ssd
Relevant-Usual783@reddit (OP)
I’ve tried that as well with no luck. I’m not even sure how that would happen though, since I was using a USB drive as the installation/boot drive for the fresh install.
But now it doesn’t even matter because both of my drives are the same size, and I couldn’t tell which one was which in the installation media so I just wiped them both, disconnected the HDD, and tried again. Of course, this went about as well as you’d expect.
Maybe the installation media on the USB was corrupt or incomplete? Again, unsure how that happens.
I have a friend who will let me use their pc to try and redownload the installation media on the USB drive in the morning.
Until then, I’ll let this post sit and see if anyone else has any ideas on what could be happening and If I haven’t tried it already I’ll give it a shot.
Will update with a resolution once I I visit my friend.