[SOLVED] X17R1, X17 R1.. Win11 freezes then cannot find boot media

[Thudo]

Environment: Dell X17R1 / 1.5.0 Bios / i9 / 3080 RTX 16GB / 64GB @ 3467 Mhz RAM / 4Tb 2x NVMe m.2 drives / Win11 Ent.

Symptoms: Once or twice a day I might be on the system working OR having locked the screen when the machine will completely freeze then crash to that Dell White screen trying to run the troubleshooting OR it will simply say "Boot Media Not Found".

Solution: As a temp fix, I simply shut the machine off after this occurs.. it will then bring up the white screen again saying "Boot Media Not Found" to which I shut the laptop down once more, bring it back up, it will at this point likely try to repair the OS but I just click "continue into Windows 11" then its fine.

What is going on here? Something on the OS causing the UEFI driver or boot media to temporarily kill itself from the BIOS until I shut it down completely (average of twice) then it works again? The laptop freezing and "Boot Media Not Found" issue seems to occur mostly when I lock the screen or sometimes after its shut down over night then either immediately upon starting up cold OR 1-2 hrs into using it from there it just stops responding eventually completely crashing to the White Dell Diagnostics screen. I'd understand if it just crashed the UEFI driver controlling the boot drive once from the OS so you just shut off the laptop then bring it up once then it would work but sometimes it needs a second shut off as even after a single cold shutdown it is not enough.

Note: I do have Secure Boot enabled in the BIOS (was defaulted to on when I got the lappy) + Bitlocker is enabled on the boot drive.

Thank you Community!

 

[Colif]

search for control panel in search
choose power options
choose "Choose what the power button does"
Click "change settings that are currently unavailable"
turn off Fast Startup if it is on (untick it)
save changes

that might help on the restarts if its a driver issue. It won't help after sleep

Have you checked the Dell website for your laptop to make sure you have newest drivers? It can look for you as its got an automatic update option. Its possible cause is a driver.

Do you know what make/models the NVME drives are?
Boot media is only going to be the NVME unless the dell program is looking for a file that isn't there.

 

[Thudo]

search for control panel in search
choose power options
choose "Choose what the power button does"
Click "change settings that are currently unavailable"
turn off Fast Startup if it is on (untick it)
save changes

Done! Mind you, unsure how changing how the power button behaves will help. I had the laptop off completely over night, turned it on this morning, went into W11 as usual, proceeded to freeze within a min, blue screened real fast then went to Dell's White Screen saying "Boot Media Not Found", hit power button to shut it off, waiting 2-5sec, brought it back it up, same white screen, shut it down for 2-5sec, came back up trying to repair OS but I just click continue and its been up since.

Have you checked the Dell website for your laptop to make sure you have newest drivers? It can look for you as its got an automatic update option. Its possible cause is a driver.

Yep! All up to date! Dell was informed and wants me to try Safe Mode for a day or 2 to see if it still locks up to the "Boot Media Not Found" screen. May try this but since this error also continues to happen even outside the OS apart from a quick off/on then it works I am inclined to believe something else.

Do you know what make/models the NVME drives are?
Boot media is only going to be the NVME unless the dell program is looking for a file that isn't there.

Have to get back to you on that one. BIOS doesn't even reveal what they are actually are but since the OS came pre-installed with the laptop one would assume it has the needed drivers. 😉

 

[Colif]

A PC with fast startup on is not off when you shut it down, its in a hybrid hibernate mode. What happens is it saves a copy of running drivers & system files into either ram or the hyberfil.sys file that is used for hibernation, at shutdown. When you start the PC again, it is really just waking up since some of it is already loaded into ram.
It makes PC with hdd seem faster than they really are. It doesn't help SSD or NVME as they already fast enough to not benefit from it.

With fast startup turned off, the PC is actually off.

Fast startup can mess with drivers not written for it.

Have to get back to you on that one. BIOS doesn't even reveal what they are actually are but since the OS came pre-installed with the laptop one would assume it has the needed drivers.

it should show you who made the drive if you look in Device manager/Hard drives

 

[Thudo]

Thanks for all your help.

- Still causing the Raid0 NVMes to seize after a short/mid period when I even just lock the screen. If I do not lock my screen but keep the machine running (no blank screen or sleep timers set) it will likely remain happy. As mentioned, on a real cold start (off all night then on in the morning) it will likely lock up even while in the OS but this will only happen once it seems now so long as throughout the day the machine stays unlocked (no blank screens which then ask for ID when out of idle, or when put to sleep).

- Checked DM.. no mention of the manufacturer. Will continue digging..

 

[Colif]

download this, don't install ccleaner, you don't need it - https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy
run it and look on storage tab, it should show you there.

if you had fast startup on, the amount of time PC is off doesn't make any difference if its still plugged in. Unplugging it will obviously result in PC being off.

I wonder what drivers are on it
Can you download and run Driverview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html

All it does is looks at drivers installed; it won't install any (this is intentional as 3rd party driver updaters often get it wrong)

When you run it, go into view tab and set it to hide all Microsoft drivers, will make list shorter.

Can you take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.

upload it to an image sharing website and show link here

I wonder what drivers might be involved with those nvme.

 

[Thudo]

Ran Ccleaner but no option to check storage. 🙁

Here is that driver list you asked for: https://ibb.co/ZVXLn6p

Nothing currently jumps out at me.

Laptop so far is stable right now: booted up fine this morning and has no crashed but then I have not locked the screen or initiated sleep mode yet.

Appreciate all your help!

 

[Thudo]

So from the BIOS.. these are the NVMe 2gb m.2s.

CA6-8D2048-Q11 NVMen SSSTC 2048GB

So basically THIS.

They are.. decent speed/rating-wise.. middle-to-higher end of the road but expected mediocre/default NVMe m.2 parts won't be anything close to a Samsung EVO Pro 970/980.

Edit: laptop started up fine for < 3 hrs but I stepped away with just the normal desktop showing (no lock or sleep) and while I was away it crashed to the Dell White Screen saying no Valid OS or Boot Device. :| Did the usual to fix: shut off, on (white screen again saying No Boot Device), shut off, on, runs Win11 Startup Diagnostics which I stop and back into the OS.

 

[Thudo]

And FINALLY was able to grab a screenshot of the BSOD which vanishes within 2 seconds...

Seems to relate to either harddrive or mem issues. Great..... makes no sense as I can go "almost" a whole day without problems.

 

[Colif]

I said to run speccy, not ccleaner.
I am on my phone so I will look at results when I have power - currently in a black out.
Might be a few hours

 

[Thudo]

Yep.. done! HERE is the result.

 

[Colif]

sorry for delay, every other day I seem to get a storm here for the last 3 months now.

I was hoping it would tell me more than what type of raid was running

what does it show on summary? I would have expected it to to show drive names.

My audio device made me look a 2nd time as thats wrong?

kernel data inpage error can be corrupted drive or ram
memory in windows is in pages, most pages are either in ram or on the page file which is likely on one of the 2 NVME.

Since its raid, it could be either drive. I assume its set up as 1 big 4tb drive, and not striped? how full is it?

is it under warranty. I worry one drive might be faulty and it would place contents of both drives (if in raid 0) into threat.

 

[Thudo]

I believe it showed two of these: CA6-8D2048-Q11 NVMen SSSTC 2048GB

Anyway, the last 24hrs was critical. I believe we found a solution! \o/

As an aside, I did run DISM, SFC, and CHKDSK on this X17R1 a few times based on recommendations to check the filesystem and OS for consistency.. no issues detected or if they were they have been fixed.

Chatting with the people from Dell and some of my own research my system is now solid and NOT BSODing every hour or so when locking the desktop, sleeping, or basically looking the wrong way at the screen it now is stable. To achieve this it was basically two parts:

1) Run Win11 in Safe Mode (bypassing the Bitlocker Recovery Key of course which is a ah heck but worked fine) only once (I have found over decades of running WinX that if normal mode has issues that running then in Safe Mode can informally"clear out extraneous data/garbage" in the OS allowing normal mode to run more smoothly), and

2) Uninstall AWCC (Alienware Command Center) - we came to this as we ran under Security and Maintenance something called "Reliability Monitor" (very useful seeing all the generated major BSOD-related errors) and noted this app consistently kept crashing after its installation and saw the relationship between OS crashes and the presence of this app. Once it was removed then rebooted, I can now do everything now without a single BSOD or OS freeze. Now, however, without AWCC I cannot easily Overclock (BIOS still available to do this but only setting the ram to XMP to get to 3467Mhz right now), customize my per-key RGB keyboard or other "frills" or create key macros. Dell says they will look into how AWCC is causing the Raid-0 array in iRST within the BIOS to fail (but then comes back with a single reboot into the BIOS again- which makes no sense to me).

So right now I kept it overnight with the lock screen on and no issues.. first time ever since receiving this beast! 😀 I am quite happy now as over the last 10 days I dreaded coming down into the lab wondering did it or didn't it survive the night? heheh... well first morning where I came down and it was still running fine and unlocked perfectly!

 

[Colif]

good, i didn't want to mess with raid.

The Solid State Storage Technology Corporation (SSSTC) CA6-8D1024 (formerly LITE-ON Storage SBG) is a high end NVMe Gen 4x4 SSD in the M.2 2280 format. It uses 3D TLC NAND flash with sequential reads specified at up to 6,800 MB/s and write with up to 4,800 MB/s (both using the cache).

https://www.notebookcheck.net/SSSTC-CA6-8D1024-SSD-Benchmarks.549384.0.html

hadn't heard their name before until I found who they used to be.

So did 2 mean you don't have to run in safe mode now?

 

[Thudo]

Yeah these SSSTC NVMe Gen 4x4 seem to be fairly decent but they'd had better be as this is an Alienware X17R1. Not. Cheap. hehehhe..

I'd prefer to shop around myself and get the best NVMe m.2 sticks like I did for my older laptop but I heard reports that the X17R1 had good sticks so..

Re: Win11 Safe Mode - I may or may not have needed to run that since we believe it was AWCC as the culprit all alone BUT going into Safe Mode once in a while is NEVER a bad idea as, traditionally, I found it cleans out crap that normal mode fails to do. Seems to be the case here but what was the silver bullet for me with the RAID-0 locking up in the OS was in fact the presence of AWCC.

 

[Colif]

I will mark thread as solved since you figured it out

 

[Thudo]

Thank you! Hope this will be helpful to others in this situation as I DO NOT want to re-install the OS from scratch: that was absurd as I've been down this road before with other Raid-0 laptops - its always either a quirk in the OS after some driver got laid down, one of the sticks becoming faulty, or an iRST controller/driver bug.

 

[Colif]

I had an option to get a RAID build once, I decided I didn't want to know and converted it into one fast drive and one storage. Used same layout ever since, only now thinking I might make storage an ssd next time, but I don't use the space I have now, so no rush.

 

[Thudo]

Would be nice for high end laptop makers to give us more RAID options apart from always "0". Both performance and redundancy comes with "10" although still not as fast as "0" but, then again, piece of mind has no price. 😉

 

[Colif]

You don't really need it on nvme, the benefits don't outweigh the risks in my eyes. Especially if only choice is 0. Nvme no faster in raid than in normal mode. RAID 0 only benefit now is bigger total space compared to one drive.

Soon enough we have 8tb nvme and how much space do you really need? (note: this reminds me of a time long ago when someone had a 50mb drive and I couldn't imagine how you would ever fill that much space when documents were so small. I didn't ssee that if you give people space, they will fid bigger files to use it with.) Do you raid them?

GPT drives can be max of 18.8 million TB, I just the question of how much space is mute. The answer appears to be "all of it"

Some here wish RAID wasn't a thing on consumer boards as its only really good at speeding up sata drives right now.

 

[Thudo]

Tell that to the laptop people... would be nice to have more options BUT the case is the limit: we only can get what THEY engineer whereas when I was sys building for decades I loved the freedom but I am now a mobile warrior and cannot go back to boxes anymore like the "good olde days".. maybe for my daughter we'll build something semi-original based off modern standards but my IT work is all lappy + virtual now: that is where the money for me is right now especially in the last 14+ months.

 

[Thudo]

Update..

Problem was solved by the latest AWCC (Alienware Command Center) and their OC Controls. Once they were installed then rebooted my system was able to survive the night in the lockscreen. \o/ No more SSSTC Raid0 freezing and subsequent BSOD and UEFI Media Driver failure while in Win11 general use or when idled for a period of time also while in Win11.

With this resolved I now turn to the next challenges - being able to configure the RGB pre-key to do specific tasks (ie. click a key and it highlights just like the microphone mute or the windows lock keys).

Here is the list..

1) Create a keyboard shortcut to sleep the machine. On my last non-Alienware laptop there was a built-in sleep key combo which was quite useful but these x17 R1s do not seem to possess this feature.

2) Allow the keyboard to highlight each key as I press them (similar to how the Disable Microphone or MS Lock buttons work) - this has been a major luxury feature I really want to enable if possible.

3) During a long idle period or engaging sleep allow the keyboard to use something like the Knight Rider LED theme - right now I cannot find any option to change this in AWCC.

4) Unsure if this is possible as an even older laptop I owned had this keyboard combo built-in but: ability to turn off the main LED screen (not lock the laptop) but just fully blank the screen itself without actually locking it (normal activity still occurs in the background while screen is blank). I've tried various batch/cmd/ps scripts but they still lock the laptop when invoked.