Relatively new laptop no boot (possible bad NVme), can't install W11 on new NVme.

[thecomputerguy]

Client has a 17m-ch0013dx stuck in a no boot after a Windows 11 update. Laptop is getting various blue screens after spinning for an ungodly amount of time including Watchdog driver errors, and Inaccessible boot device errors.

Laptop is about a year old.

Tried all the usual, system repair, system restore (no OS detected), uninstall previous updates.

The OEM NVme is detected in the BIOS as per the image below but it is an optane NVme.

I removed the OEM NVme and mounted it to my NVme usb adapter. The drive will not detect in Windows but the adapter is detected, and I know the adapter works. I noticed when removing the NVme drive from my test system that it was noticeably hotter than expected.

I dropped in a new Samsung NVme into the laptop and it is detected by the BIOS but when I run W11 setup the drive is not detected in the installation environment.

Moving through the BIOS I do not see any settings that would allow the new NVme to be detected. Typically when this happens it can usually be corrected by changing the BIOS from RAID to AHCI (at least in my experience). Usually after that I will see the drive in the installation environment.

I tried disabling Secure Boot to see if that would help (even though I know W11 requires secure boot), still no Samsung drive in the installation environment. Here is what I see in the BIOS.
















ORIGINAL DRIVE







SAMSUNG DRIVE








Thankfully he does have a cloud backup as of 12/8 and it appears that data may be minimal (11GB). It is possible that may be because when I setup his laptop I had everything backing up in OneDrive and OneDrive will typically be excluded from the backup task. I will have to check.

Any idea on how I can get this Samsung drive to appear in the installation media?

 

[thecomputerguy]

AHHHH I got it working.

I had to get the Intel RST driver off the HP website and load the driver in the installation environment after I loaded the driver files on my bootable W11 USB media.

I'll leave the post up for anyone else for future reference.

 

[thecomputerguy]

Does anyone have a reliable tool to test NVme drives?

Usually I'd use Gsmartctrl or Crystaldisk info but I'm not sure how reliable those are for SSD's/NVme drives.

I know it won't matter anyways if I can't get the drive to mount in Windows but just asking.

 

[phaZed]

Does anyone have a reliable tool to test NVme drives?

Usually I'd use Gsmartctrl or Crystaldisk info but I'm not sure how reliable those are for SSD's/NVme drives.

I know it won't matter anyways if I can't get the drive to mount in Windows but just asking.

Basically need to slip them into a board for testing. The Adapters block any SMART or Gsmart/Crystal use... the proggies will simply see "the adapter"

 

[thecomputerguy]

Basically need to slip them into a board for testing. The Adapters block any SMART or Gsmart/Crystal use... the proggies will simply see "the adapter"

Would you say that it's safe to assume that the drive has failed based on what I have posted above, and the fact that it won't mount in a known good adapter?

I already sold him the part and all the labor including onsite re-install so the job is what it is. I almost don't even want to waste anymore time on the old NVme drive just based on how things went downhill so quickly.

 

[timeshifter]

Got a similar problem with a Dell XPS 13. Drive would randomly show up missing in on board diag, system barely booting crashing. Replaced NVMe SSD and tried to install clean with Windows 22H2 ISO. Doesn’t see any drive.

 

[phaZed]

Would you say that it's safe to assume that the drive has failed based on what I have posted above, and the fact that it won't mount in a known good adapter?

If I'm seeing correctly that it's a 500GB Optane drive - I would say there is a very high probability.

 

[sapphirescales]

I had to get the Intel RST driver off the HP website and load the driver in the installation environment after I loaded the driver files on my bootable W11 USB media.

Yup. This has been a common thing for many years now even before SSDs. Sometimes the Windows USB just doesn't have the right drivers, which is why there's an easy UI option during Windows setup to add third party drivers. I think this even existed back in the Windows XP setup, though you had to use a freaking floppy disk to load the drivers so if you had a computer without a floppy drive you were SOL and had to slipstream the driver into the XP setup disk itself and re-burn it. Fun times.

In the past you could just go into the BIOS and change the SATA controller to "compatibility" mode or IDE mode. Then on newer computers that were set to "RAID on" by default you could just revert to standard ACHI. Nowadays though this trick no longer works for some computers. I don't know why. All I know is the fix, which is to find the controller driver on the manufacturer's website, extract it with 7zip, put it on a flash drive, then boot into the Windows setup and load the driver from your flash drive. You'd think Microsoft would update the drivers included in their setup USB with each new build, but no. The older an OS gets, the less likely it will have the driver you need to install on your newer computer.

 

[thecomputerguy]

Yup. This has been a common thing for many years now even before SSDs. Sometimes the Windows USB just doesn't have the right drivers, which is why there's an easy UI option during Windows setup to add third party drivers. I think this even existed back in the Windows XP setup, though you had to use a freaking floppy disk to load the drivers so if you had a computer without a floppy drive you were SOL and had to slipstream the driver into the XP setup disk itself and re-burn it. Fun times.

In the past you could just go into the BIOS and change the SATA controller to "compatibility" mode or IDE mode. Then on newer computers that were set to "RAID on" by default you could just revert to standard ACHI. Nowadays though this trick no longer works for some computers. I don't know why. All I know is the fix, which is to find the controller driver on the manufacturer's website, extract it with 7zip, put it on a flash drive, then boot into the Windows setup and load the driver from your flash drive. You'd think Microsoft would update the drivers included in their setup USB with each new build, but no. The older an OS gets, the less likely it will have the driver you need to install on your newer computer.

Yeah I remember having to do this a lot in the 98, XP days expecially with Server motherboards. It just took me awhile to come full circle with it because it has been a LONG time since I've had to load controller drivers before the OS install.

Guess it's making a comeback!