[SOLVED] NVMe drops from boot order

[Enthusiast_Enterprises]

Hey guys, this is my first post here. I've got a lot of help from threads here in the past and wanted to say thanks to the community here on Tom's Hardware. I've got an issue that I cant find anything definitive on and I'm stumped.

I just built a system that has a 256gb m.2 nvme boot drive and a 2tb sata storage drive. The system worked fine at first but after a couple of hours the restarted itself for some reason and is says "reboot and select proper boot drive" error message. I went into the bios and noticed the data drive was moved to first in the boot order so I changed it back and didnt have any issues for another couple of hours and it did it again.

I went back in and disabled the sata drive from the boot priorities list and it booted up fine for another couple of hours until it did it again except this time the nvme storage drive (wdc pc sn720 sdaqntw-256g-1001) was first in the boot list over the windows boot manager.

So I drag the boot manager back to number one and it boots fine but then the system restarted and automatically went into the bios and would not even recognize I had a nvme drive installed. I had to restart the system so it would see the drive, change the boot order again and like always it boots into windows just fine after that until it randomly restarts and I have to restart it to recognize the drive and change the boot order again.

 

[drtweak]

check to make sure that boot settings are set to uEFI only an not uEFI and Legacy. That should fix the issue.

 

[BLTVAH]

I experienced this issue with drive enumeration and was able to resolve it after a few frustrating hours.
These steps outline what to do before installing a new WIN 10 image onto an NVME drive.
I'm not familiar with your BIOS configuration, but with some searching you should be able to find the same settings in your BIOS. Also, these steps assume you already are familiar with installing Windows 10 and using Diskpart and other similar utilities.

1. Ensure you're using the latest BIOS firmware for your MB.
2. Using a Windows 10 USB Boot Drive, launch DiskPart and clean your NVME and SATA disks.
   Do not create any new partitions. Turn off PC.
3. Disconnect the SATA drive(s) and with only the NVME drive connected, boot into the BIOS.
4. Enable AHCI for your Storage Devices - not RAID
5. Turn off S.M.A.R.T for any drive that may be using it.
6. Enable Rapid Storage Technology (RST)
7. Disable "Launch CSM"
8. Under OS Type select "Other OS"
9. Under Secure Boot\Key Management select "Clear Secure Boot keys".
10. Save changes and exit BIOS
11. Install OS using a Windows 10 Installation USB Key. (it will prompt to select installation drive, then partition and format it as per your requirements)
12. Once Windows is installed, upate the MB chipset drivers to latest.
13. Shutdown system and add any SATA Drives you want.
14. Return to the BIOS and ensure your Windows drive is at the top of the boot order.
15. Boot into Windows and use Computer Management \Disk Management or DiskPart to Partition and create usable Volumes on your SATA drives. Your NVME drive should remain listed as Disk 0.

Once these steps are done, and you can verify your NVME is still listed as disk 0, re-enable only the following in the BIOS:

1. Enable "Launch CSM"
2. Under OS Type select "Windows UEFI"
3. Under Secure Boot\Key Management create new boot keys
4. Save changes and exit BIOS

Let me know if this works out for you