New M2 SSD won't get detected in BIOS but in Windows

made3
made3 Member Posts: 5

Tinkerer
edited October 2023 in 2020 Archives
Hey,

I have spent the whole day trying to get my SSD to work but it's not working. I have this Notebook: Acer Aspire V15 Nitro vn7-571G-53N9
It has a 1Tb SSHD installed and got a free M2 spot, so I thought I would buy a M2 and install Windows 10 on it. It's a NVMe M2.

After I installed it I started Windows from the SSHD, looked into disk management and found the SSD. I formatted it and after that I was also able to open it from the file exporer etc.

Then I prepared a bootable USB stick, restarted the PC with the USB stick as highest boot priority. When the Windows installation stuff came up both the SSHD and the SSD were shown. I deleted all partitions etc and chose the SSD. Windows got installed, no errors, but when it has to restart it boots up with the message "No bootable device". I looked into the BIOS and noticed that the SSD is not there. So basically it gets detected during the Windows installation and in Windows itself (If started on a different disk) but not in the BIOS.
Then I reinstalled Windows on the SSHD. Then I unplugged the SSHD, so that only the new SSD is left plugged in. Tried to reinstall Windows on the SSD, but the same thing happened. It wont get recognized in the BIOS. Now I plugged the SSHD back in again and booted it up so I can write this post.

The current disk management:


So as you can see Windows got somewhat installed on the SSD (500GB, Datenträger 1)?


I don't know what else to do now. I read somewhere else that only a SATA M2 is supported by my Laptop and not a NVMe M2 but I mean, it still gets detected by Windows and I can access it without any problems from Windows. I apparently just can't boot from it.

Answers

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,880 Trailblazer
    Do both drives show up in the BIOS INFORMATION tab as HDD0 and HDD1? Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • made3
    made3 Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer
    JackE said:
    Do both drives show up in the BIOS INFORMATION tab as HDD0 and HDD1? Jack E/NJ
    Nope:


    I also tried setting the Boot mode to legacy, but I think it didnt find any of the two drives.
    And I tried to set the SATA mode to IDE instead of AHCI. No idea if that even made any sense, but there are barely any settings sadly. Screenshots of the rest of the BIOS if it may help:



  • Commodore_1995#
    Commodore_1995# ACE Posts: 98,322 Trailblazer
    It is not necessary to change or unlock the bios.
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  • made3
    made3 Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer
    egydiocoelho said:
    It is not necessary to change or unlock the bios.
    Ah okay, looks promising. So if it would have been a SATA M.2 I would not have had any trouble?
    And I don't always have to boot via that Clover-EFI Bootloader after I installed Windows that way? Like I dont need that USB Stick plugged in all the time
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,880 Trailblazer
    The Clover bootloader looks interesting. Let us know if it works.

    In reviewing past user experiences with m.2 cards for the VN7-571G,  its BIOS seems to have trouble recognizing newer m.2 cards as bootable drives because it's m.2 socket is a slightly different older NGFF connector pin specification meant to support smaller capacity m.2 cards. While newer cards are supposed to be backward compatible with the pure NGFF socket, it seems that cards over 128GB have trouble as boot drives though might be fully recognized as regular flash drives by Windows diskmgmt.msc & explore.exe.

    If Clover doesn't pan out, one option might be try to shrink the m.2's Windows partition to less than 128GB (leaving the rest unallocated) to see if the BIOS Information tab responds even though I have my doubts. The other option is an m.2 SATA card that's also certified as being compatible with the NG form factor socket. I suspect the capacities of these NGFF compatible cards will be 128GB or less. Still a third option, might be special firmware offered by the m.2 manufacturer to accomodate the card capacity limitation---maybe similar to Clover. Jack E/NJ



    Jack E/NJ

  • made3
    made3 Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer
    edited December 2020
    JackE said:
    The Clover bootloader looks interesting. Let us know if it works.

    In reviewing past user experiences with m.2 cards for the VN7-571G,  its BIOS seems to have trouble recognizing newer m.2 cards as bootable drives because it's m.2 socket is a slightly different older NGFF connector pin specification meant to support smaller capacity m.2 cards. While newer cards are supposed to be backward compatible with the pure NGFF socket, it seems that cards over 128GB have trouble as boot drives though might be fully recognized as regular flash drives by Windows diskmgmt.msc & explore.exe.

    If Clover doesn't pan out, one option might be try to shrink the m.2's Windows partition to less than 128GB (leaving the rest unallocated) to see if the BIOS Information tab responds even though I have my doubts. The other option is an m.2 SATA card that's also certified as being compatible with the NG form factor socket. I suspect the capacities of these NGFF compatible cards will be 128GB or less. Still a third option, might be special firmware offered by the m.2 manufacturer to accomodate the card capacity limitation---maybe similar to Clover. Jack E/NJ




    Alright I just tried it and I am able to install and boot Windows on the M.2 SSD with the Clover bootloader. 

    Anyway, as far as I can tell I would have to let the USB Stick with the clover bootloader plugged in every time I start the notebook which is too much of a pain for the profit I would gain. Guess I will just install Windows on the SSHD again and use the SSD for storage and programs etc.
    Apparently you could also use an internal storage device via SATA for the Clover bootloader but I don't think I have a slot left plus it's too much effort in my case.
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,880 Trailblazer
    I wonder if the Clover bootloader can be added to the EFI partition as a trusted BIOS efi file just like the Windows boot loader or the Linux bootloader? Then the Clover loader would show up in the BIOS Boot tab. It loads first, then Windows automatically loads next from the m.2.  I still think you should check with the m.2 manufacturer to see if a firmware solution might be available. Jack E/NJ.

    Jack E/NJ

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