Bug? Acer VN7-591G BIOS with M.2 SSD, not booting correctly

Mulder1
Mulder1 Member Posts: 4 New User
edited March 2023 in 2017 Archives

Hello Tech Support,

   I own an Acer V Nitro VN7-591G, the bios version is v1.15 the latest off of the support page.  I'm having a problem configuring the bios to boot straight from an M.2 SSD drive.  I have a feeling that this is a bug in the bios because phone support wasn't able to fix this problem - ticket support # ***.  I've also read about people having the same issue that I have.  Here's my setup:

 

This laptop came with a 1TB 2.5" HDD.  I then installed a Crucial 275GB M.2 SSD to the M.2 slot and cloned the 1TB 2.5" HDD to it.  I then partitioned the 1TB HDD Windows 10 installation to the same size as the Crucial drive to keep as an internal backup of the OS, and partitioned the rest of the 1TB hard drive to use as storage.  So, I want to use the M.2 SSD as my boot/system drive and use the second storage partition of the 1TB hard drive as well, then keep the first partition of the M.2 SSD as a backup that I can boot from if needed or clone to another M.2 SSD if the one I have fails.

 

So, in the v1.15 bios, I choose UEFI and set the boot order to have the Crucial M.2 SSD first in the list.  The laptop will not boot the M.2 SSD first directly from the bios no matter what I do, I've tried every setting, including restoring defaults and restoring boot defaults.  If I hold F12 down on startup and select the Crucial M.2 SSD drive it boots from the M.2 SSD as it should and loads windows off of the M.2 SSD like it's supposed to.  So, the bios won't correctly boot off the M.2 SSD drive correctly even if it's listed first in the Boot Priority Order.  If I have a bootable USB flash drive connected, and put that first in the boot priority order list in the bios, the laptop will boot to the USB flash drive correctly.

 

When I enable F12 boot manager in the bios, and use that on startup by holding F12 and select the M.2 SSD drive, it boots from from the M.2 SSD drive like it's supposed to.  There's nothing wrong with the M.2 SSD drive or the windows 10 installation on it as it boots fine using the F12 boot manager.

 

My problem is that the bios isn't booting to the M.2 SSD correctly when it's set up to do so, it still boots from the 2.5" HDD even though the M.2 SSD drive is the first in the priority list.

 

At this point I think it's a bug with the bios/laptop not properly booting from the M.2 slot even when an M.2 SSD drive is selected as being first in the boot priority order.

 

Hopefully I can get some feedback/help for this problem from Acer?  Thank you.

 

[edited for privacy-please do not post personal or unique information such as but not limited to full names, email addresses, phone numbers, full serial numbers, etc.]

Answers

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    if you take off the HDD, the system is able to boot automatically from the M.2 SSD?

     

    have you deleted the EFI partition on the HDD?

     

    Can you post a screenshot of windows Disk mamagement?

     

    remember, under UEFI, it's windows boot management the main default bootable device.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • Mulder1
    Mulder1 Member Posts: 4 New User

     

     

    Hey, thanks for the reply.  And thanks for the info about UEFI, I just learned a lot in the last few hours of troubleshooting this problem.

     

    So I disconnected the 2.5" HDD (removed the cable from the drive under the keyboard), and yes the system is able to boot automatically from the M.2 SSD.

     

     

    I think the bios is bugged, and here's why.

     

    There are 2 Windows Boot Manager options when I use the F12 Boot Menu Key on startup.  One is linked to the M.2 SSD (Crucial) and one is linked to the 2.5" HDD (WDC).  Each one of the drives has a UEFI partition on it because I cloned the 2.5" HDD to the M.2 SSD. 

    - When I use F12 and boot to the 2.5" HDD, EaseUS Partition Manager tells me that the EFI System Partition on the 2.5" HDD is my System drive under Status, and that my Windows 10 Partition on the 2.5" HDD is my Boot drive under Status.

    EaseUS Partition Manager from 2.5 HDD Boot.png

     

    - When I use F12 and boot to the M.2 SSD, EaseUS Partition Manager tells me that the EFI System Partition on the M.2 SSD is my System drive under Status, and that my Windows 10 Partition on the M.2 SSD is my Boot drive under Status.

    EaseUS Partition Manager from M.2 SSD Boot.png

     

    F12 (Boot Manager startup option) works like it's supposed to.

     

    The boot priority order in the bios is not working like it's supposed to.

     

    When I put the M.2 SSD at the top of the boot priority list here's what happens...

    - EaseUS Partition Manager tells me that the EFI System Partition on the 2.5" HDD is my System drive under Status, and that my Windows 10 Partition on the 2.5" HDD is my Boot drive under status.

     

    Even when I put the M.2 SSD at the top of the boot priority order, the Acer laptop is still booting the Windows Boot Manager off of the 2.5" HDD no matter what.

     

    If I remove the 2.5" HDD from the system (unplug the cable from it under the keyboard), then the laptop will boot Windows Boot Manager from the M.2 SSD and boot correctly.

     

    I think there's a bug in this bios that when there is an M.2 drive and a 2.5" HDD drive present, it will still boot to the 2.5" HDD even if the M.2 drive is at the top of the boot priority list.

     

    For a temporary workaround until this is fixed, I've used EasyBCD to edit my boot settings on the 2.5" HDD drive to have the M.2 SSD Drive be the default boot drive and have the 2.5" HDD drive be the secondary non-default option.  When I do this, and don't use F12, it looks like this below... the EFI Partition on the 2.5" HDD is the System Partition, while the Windows 10 Partition on the M.2 SSD is the Boot Partition.

    EaseUS Partition Manager from 2.5 HDD Boot to M.2 SSD Windows.png

     

    So, problem temporarily solved until hopefully Acer looks this over and potentially fixes a bug.

     

    I have it working the way I want to now, which is to have the laptop boot into the Windows 10 Partition on the M.2 SSD without having to hold F12.  However, I still don't have the drives booting and behaving how they should be.  I did about 4 hours of testing different things and came to the conclusion that even if one of the drives should die, I have both drives listed as boot options in EasyBCD for both the M.2 and 2.5" HDD so I should be fine if that happens.

     

    I was able to get my drives behaving sort of how I want them to but it was real a pain in the ***** to work around this, hopefully Acer can get it fixed and release a bios update.

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    in my opinion it's not a bug, since you have 2 exact copies of the same EFI partition, how can the system understand which one is the correct to boot?

     

    simply the 2.5"HDD is probably labeled as SATA0 (hardware resources from chipset) on BIOS and this will the main boot if it found an EFI partition.

    on a UEFI BIOS, as i wrote, windows boot manager (if existing) will be always the first bootable device even if you set any other device as the first one (that's why F12 option is here).

    and that's why EasyBCD fixed your issue, it edited the bootloader like you did a second OS installation, dual boot. 

     

    it's completly different from the old BIOS (Legacy) where the boot order was defined by hardware.

     

    just for curiosity...why such configuration?

     

    oh, keep in mind that Microsoft told it's better to make a clean install instead of cloning HDD to SSD, since there are some tweaks and triggers that are enabled when installing to a SSD; these didn't happen if you clone. (trim, disable defrag, etc etc)

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • Mulder1
    Mulder1 Member Posts: 4 New User

     

     

    I guess that makes sense.  Thanks for all the advice.

     

    I would just think that if you specified the M.2 SSD to be at the top of the boot priority list it would boot the Windows Boot Manager partition from the M.2 SSD, however if that's the way it's meant to work that's the way it's meant to work.

     

    Reason I'm trying the configuration is because I like to have a cloned backup of my system that I can go back to if anything happens or the drive fails.  This is a work computer, so in theory if my SSD or HDD decided to fail I would still have a drive to work from on the computer.  I wouldn't have to delay working for hours until I reinstall windows onto another hard drive.  If my SSD were to fail I could just boot Windows off the HDD and be operational until a replacement SSD showed up.  

     

    I would like to delete the UEFI partition off the 2.5" HDD to see if the M.2 SSD will boot with a 2.5" HDD present.  From what you're saying it should.

  • IronFly
    IronFly ACE Posts: 18,413 Trailblazer

    Ok but...

     

    M.2 SSD is your main OS installation disk, if you do some modifications here (files - updates or whatever) these will not be copied to your HDD automatically.

     

    if you want to create a backup (or sort of, since we can discuss about which kind of backup you need) a RAID1 configuration will be a good thing.

    on RAID1 if one disk dies, you can still work/boot with the other array member, since the 2 disks are syncronised (this means...if you delete one file by mistake, will be delete in the other disk too).

     

    RAID must be supported by BIOS.

     

    if you want a daily/weekly backup, you can use windows backup software, this will create a disk image, so you will be able to re-install that disk image using a windows bootable media or recovery.

    I'm not an Acer employee.
  • Mulder1
    Mulder1 Member Posts: 4 New User

     

     

    Yea I know, I'm ok with it not updating in real time.

     

    Laptop doesn't support RAID.

     

    The image backup sounds nice for the automatic backups but I'd rather be able to boot onto my HDD if necessary.

     

    I'm pretty satisfied with the way it's set up now, it takes 30mins to clone the drive, probably just do it bi-weekly.

     

    I guess it's just a wierd quirk of the way UEFI works...

     

    I checked TRIM, that's enabled.  I can see that windows disk defrag sees it's an SSD and doesn't defrag it.  Any other things I'm missing by not doing a fresh install of Windows 10 to the SSD?  I think that would be my only concern now, although the drive seems to be performing as expected, much faster than the HDD.