Question WD_BLACK SN770 NVMe can't boot after installing Windows ?

[Omphaloskeptic]

Hey all, sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place here, not sure if my problem is with storage or the mobo so I'm asking around to whoever can help.

NVMe SSD: WD_BLACK SN770 2TB
Mobo: Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX ICE, BIOS version F31
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X

I started with using this drive as only storage on a different build with no issues. After upgrading most of the parts of the PC, it was still recognized as a drive and I can still use it for storage now. The problem is when I try to install an OS on it because my OS is currently installed on an older SSD. Here's the process I went through: clean the drive to unallocated space using diskpart in the command prompt, shut down, physically unplugged my other drives from the motherboard, boot from USB with Windows installation media, installed Windows 10 (and have tried 11).

Afterwards, the NVMe SSD isn't recognized as a boot drive until I enable CSM support, but once it's recognized and I try to boot I get this:
" reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key "

The drive appears to have Windows installed correctly and is in GPT format. The drive is installed in the M2A_CPU slot. After asking WD for help we determined that the drive is as 100% health and is probably not the problem if it can still be used for storage.

Please let me know what other information is required or how I can fix this problem.

Thank you for your help.

 

[evermorex76]

Is RAID mode disabled? You shouldn't have been able to install at all if it wasn't.

Try setting Storage Boot Option Control to UEFI Only while CSM support is enabled. It sounds like it's properly installing in UEFI-mode, because when you switch to CSM which looks for a BIOS-mode drive it fails, so you shouldn't need to enable CSM at all, so it's definitely odd.

Try to disable CSM, and make sure any other settings for Legacy or BIOS or CSM modes are disabled or grayed out as well. According to the BIOS guide, they shouldn't be available unless CSM is enabled

When you say it's not recognized as a boot drive, what do you mean? The BIOS doesn't show the drive exists? Or you just get an error that no boot drive is found? The error you get in CSM is because CSM doesn't recognize a GPT-formatted boot drive.

You could just go ahead and do the installation with CSM enabled. All that will happen is that the MBR format will be used and you'll be running in BIOS/Legacy mode instead of UEFI. That won't make much of a difference, nothing noticeable. The biggest limitation is you can't have a boot partition larger than 2TB so this drive (which has a 1.8TB real space) will be fine.

 

[Omphaloskeptic]

Thanks for the response! I'll fiddle with it some more soon, but before that can I get some more clarification?

I don't know much about RAID. Is that a setting in BIOS pertaining to the NVMe drive prior to attempting OS installation?

Disabling CSM prior to installation affects how the Windows Installation Media works?

When I say it's not recognized as a boot drive, yeah, BIOS doesn't list it as an option and the PC goes straight back to BIOS when restarted.

Hm, so the problem is the drive is formatted in GPT but GPT format isn't recognized in CSM enabled?

 

[evermorex76]

https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_amd600series-bios_e_0104.pdf

That's the BIOS guide and will tell you where each setting is located. If RAID functionality is enabled, you usually have to use a USB drive with the drivers on it and manually load them during Windows setup.

The motherboard has the CSM enable/disable setting, and then further options that are only available if CSM is enabled. One of those is UEFI Only or BIOS Only. I'm not entirely sure what that does, because you can't boot from a GPT drive when in BIOS mode, or MBR when in UEFI mode. Maybe it's a method to "interpret" the drive in a way that will allow it to boot when in the "wrong" mode, so if you set it to UEFI-Only right now, it will make your drive bootable. It's just odd that it becomes completely invisible in the setup which should be unrelated to how it's formatted.

If CSM is enabled, Windows will install in "BIOS mode", which creates an MBR drive instead of GPT. MBR has some limitations like 2TB (binary) physical disk size, and other functionality is less than UEFI, but performance is the same on consumer systems. If CSM is disabled, Windows creates a GPT drive which technically has a 75.6 zetabyte drive size limit but is implemented such that the limit is "only" 18 exabytes. BIOS can ONLY work with MBR as the boot drive, and UEFI can ONLY work with GPT. (BIOS/Legacy systems can read a GPT data-only disk as long as the operating system supports it.)

 

[SkyNetRising]

Here's the process I went through:

clean the drive to unallocated space using diskpart in the command prompt,​

shut down,​

physically unplugged my other drives from the motherboard,​

boot from USB with Windows installation media, installed Windows 10 (and have tried 11).​

Afterwards, the NVMe SSD isn't recognized as a boot drive until I enable CSM support,
but once it's recognized and I try to boot I get this: " reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key "
The drive appears to have Windows installed correctly and is in GPT format.

In UEFI mode valid boot option is named "Windows Boot Manager". In some BIOS versions it can be also named "UEFI:Hard drive"
Boot option named <HDD/SSD model name> is for legacy boot.
If windows has been installed in UEFI mode, then legacy boot option is not functional (you can not boot from it).
If you try to boot in legacy mode from OS installed in UEFI mode, you get error message you mentioned above "reboot and select proper boot device".

Some BIOS settings you have to pay attention to:

Sata Controller mode - set to AHCI,​

Fast Boot - disabled,​

Secure boot - disabled​

NVME raid - disabled.​

​

If possible, show screenshot from Disk Management.
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

 

[evermorex76]

Secure Boot should be enabled with Windows 7 and higher (although disabling it does nothing more than disable the slight security that it provides to ensure that you're booting a valid Windows install). Fast Boot normally can be enabled. SATA controller mode is irrelevant with this drive since it's NVMe.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Secure Boot should be enabled with Windows 7 and higher.
Fast Boot normally can be enabled.
SATA controller mode is irrelevant with this drive since it's NVMe.

Having Secure boot enabled can cause boot problems. Should be avoided, if possible.
Having fast boot enabled can cause partition table/file system corruption, if you're adding/removing storage devices.
Sata controller mode may have options to cause NVME drive treated as cache drive for sata drive. This is relevant to NVME drives.

 

[evermorex76]

Secure Boot only causes problems if you're booting something that doesn't have a proper secure boot code. Fast Boot doesn't corrupt anything, but might prevent detection of new devices, which can be resolved by simply doing a hard power cycle. The NVMe drive would have never shown up in the first place if SATA options are relevant, and they only appear on Intel boards that support Optane.