this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024

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Having troubles getting windows to work on new NVME. (self.pcmasterrace)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by Alpha71 to c/pcmasterrace

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OK, so my first NVME was a cheap Kingston 2 TB drive. Not very good. So I just bought a new WD Black SN850X. tried doing a fresh install of windows. didn't work. said 'fuck it' and cloned my Kingston to the WD.

Now when I try booting off of the WD my BIOS detects it, but when i try to select it to boot from it doesn't show up. only my old Kingston shows up.

Motherboard is a Gigabyte Z790 UD AC.

tried switching drive letters. didn't work.

At wits end. Any suggestions?

Edit: sort of figured it out.

Pro tip, make sure your USB drive is formatted to the same file system as your nvme is.

First attempt was with a fat32 usb. This is what caused the problem.

Used a different USB formatted to ntsf. Seemes to be working now. Hopefully i will be anle to install windows now

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We are going to need more information than "didn't work"

What errors during windows install? What software did you use to clone it? Where are you trying to select it to boot from? In bios or in the windows boot option?

[–] Alpha71 1 points 11 months ago

Macrium Reflect to clone.

Now when i go into BIOS, my WD drive is detected. But when I look into boot options it only shows boot option 1 which is the Kingston drive. The WD drive doesn't show up at all. I tried booting without the Kingston drive installed, didn't work. And i can find no way to select another drive to boot from.

[–] Presi300 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Nah, your problem was probably not with your file system, you probably created the windows boot USB with a legacy MBR partition table, instead of a GPT one.

[–] Alpha71 1 points 11 months ago

either way windows is installed on the new drive now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

When you say your first install "didn't work," what does that mean? Install failed halfway through? Windows Media Installer couldn't find the drive? Got a bsod?

Is the new drive in the first slot? Some motherboards are finicky about which slot the boot drive is in. Is your BIOS up to date?

[–] Alpha71 -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Kept getting an error message. Cant remember it. Doesnt matter as I've cloned the drive now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

You didn't answer my other questions. Which slot is the drive in? If it's not the first one, the one with the heatsink/heatshield by the CPU, try installing it there. You should also make sure your BIOS is up to date.

It's stupid, but some boards don't like to boot from the other slots or might only do so after a BIOS update.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Windows needs to be configured to boot in UEFI mode from a GPT partition for it to work on a nvme.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

It basically comes down to needing to install the OS on a GPT file system using UEFI, which doesn't happen if your install media is FAT32 IIRC.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Does the drive come with a raid configuration preinstalled? I had that messing things up with an hdd before

[–] Alpha71 0 points 11 months ago

No, just your basic NVME