Question Windows 10 Will Not Boot on NVMe SSD

Jan 17, 2021
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I just received a 1TB WD_BLACK SN750 NVMe drive and I am attempting to run windows 10 off of it as my main boot drive. Previously I was using a Samsung 960 EVO SATA SSD which I did not have any issues with.

Motherboard: MSI X470 Gaming Plus
CPU: Ryzen 2600x
GPU: EVGA 1080Ti FTW3
After installing windows 10 (UEFI) onto the NVMe, the BIOS sees the drive but does not recognize it as a bootable drive when set to UEFI. At first it would see it in Legacy + UEFI mode however it would not boot and instead say "Reboot and Select Proper Boot Device", I no longer see it in this BIOS setting (been messing around a lot so I may have caused it to disappear myself).

All windows installation attempts completed with all other drives unplugged. BIOS recognizes the drive outside of the boot options on the "System" screen.

What I have tried:
  1. Attempted booting and installing with CMS on and CMS off.
  2. Reset CMOS by both removing the battery and using the button on the motherboard
  3. Confirmed the USB boot drive has a good copy of windows (re-installed on old SATA SSD and am now using it)
  4. Boot drive was created with Windows Media Creation Tool both automatically AND using the ISO download and Rufus
  5. Confirmed that the PCIe slots are enabled/set to auto
  6. If SSD is connected when booting windows on old SATA SSD, it is recognized by windows as a storage device.
  7. When creating bootable windows USB, it was made using UEFI and GPT partition type, tried on both FAT32 and NTFS (not that the last part should matter?)
  8. Tried in second M.2 slot, no luck
  9. Confirmed that the drive works as a storage drive when used with another SSD that has windows 10 installed.
  10. Attempted install from another PC, same boot issues occurred.
  11. Confirmed windows installation media (boot drive) works properly as I installed on another SSD with no issues.

I believe the issue revolves around the windows 10 install not creating the proper partitions. On the SATA SSD I get 3 partitions:
  1. EFI
  2. Healthy (Boot, page file, crash dump, basic data partition)
  3. Healthy(recovery partition)

However, with the NVMe I get only these two partitions:
  1. EFI
  2. Healthy (Basis data partition)

I have researched this to the ends of the internet and had no success however it does seem to be a common issue.
If any other details are needed I'll provide them! Any help would be appreciated!
 
Jan 17, 2021
8
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Secure boot is off, I have set boot mode to uefi however there is no specific pcie option available.

Motherboard still not seeing it in the boot options or in the BBS priorities
 
When I have CSM enabled (makes it legacy + UEFI) I can select it as a boot option but it will not boot
That's because, you're selecting legacy boot entry.
Legacy boot will not work, because system is installed in UEFI mode.

It's possible bootloader is not properly created on 1TB drive.
Try this. It should fix bootloader. Exectute from elevated command prompt:
diskpart
list disk
select disk 2
list partition
select partition x
(select 300MB partition, x=1 or x=2)​
assign letter=H
exit
bcdboot D:\windows /s H:
Then reboot, go into BIOS. There should be 2x entries of Windows Boot manager (one per drive).

 
Jan 17, 2021
8
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When I put in "bcdboot D:\windows /s H:" I received "failure when attempting to copy boot files"

EDIT: Ignore this - Didn't run as admin, boot files copied successfully, going to try and boot.