[Guide] NVMe-boot without modding your UEFI/BIOS (Clover-EFI bootloader method)

Good morning everyone: I just registered here. I find it an excellent and interesting forum. I hope to share with you my experiences. I am a PC repair technician. This is what I do for a living and support my family.

Hi and welcome to the forum, i appoligise for the slow reply i have been a away for a few days.
I have that same motherboard in one of my computers and it works fine, please share which pcie adapter card are you using and or the model of the ssd.
Are you using any other pci cards such as graphics cards or other ?
Remember please only copy the nvme driver from the off directory to the other directories. there are 6 directories in total.
Please be sure to run the BDU on the same computer you are trying to boot.
Ensure that when booted to a normal windows drive you can see and use the nvme drive as a normal storage device (this means that it has GPT and is formatted to NTFS, specifically that is is initialized ).
with all of the above done it’s time to dive into the clover config.plist
an infinite black screen is normally caused by a hang within clover normally the result of an incorrect configuration in the config.plist.
There are many resources online for configuring the clover config.plist it is largely a trial and error type method to resolve although it is worth noting that the clover debug logs can be helpful aswell as the verbose/shell stuff if there is an error being produced.
A web search for common reasons clover hangs may prove useful.
You may pm myself with a copy of your config.plist and i will give it a look over for obvious issues. ( NOTE; I am not the most advanced user when it comes to troubleshooting the config.plist but i will give it a go anyway. )
Good luck and happy modding!


Good day to you all: I have the same problem. Create the usb memory using the BDU tool. The pc starts up and displays the Clover menu. When I tell it to start the W10 installation process from the second usb memory, the screen goes black and nothing happens after that. I have to reset the computer and boot again with the other disks. In the process I have disconnected all hard disks and left only the clover memory and the nvme disk connected.
I have seen that some of you have had the same problem but I have not seen the published solution.
Please excuse me, English is not my native language.
Note: I followed the procedure of the first post with the corresponding folder settings:
1. Efi\CLOVER\drivers\bios
2. Efi\CLOVER\drivers\uefi
3. Efi\CLOVER\drivers32uefi
Thank you in advance.

@Honey
Hello and welcome, it is always nice to meet another professional technician.

Regarding you issue the 3 directories you listed are correct you may also like to try the drivers64uefi folder aswell.
but i suspect your issue is related to the clover configuration generated by the BDU. the BDU automatically generates a clover configuration file based on the computer’s specific hardware so its vital that the bdu is run on the computer you intend for it to boot. As it assumes that is the computer its configuring for.
With this in mind you may try to boot from clover manually via the shell and see if that works otherwise I sugest perhaps trying a few different usbs with the media creation tool I tried about 3 or 4 myself before I found a stick that would actually boot the installer I should also mention that a usb2.0 stick is preferable over 3.0 for install media as it seems 3.0 is a little hit and miss still.

I tried all the directories for drivers,
tried making a BDU off my win10 laptop & then installing win10 on my PC HDD & still no luck.

My relevant specs are
2500k
Gigabyte P67A UD3 B3
16GB DDR3 1600mhz 4 stick

Drives are
WD Blue 320GB x2 RAID 0
Hitachi Deskstar 1TB

Sabrent Rocket Q 1TB

Tried different USBs as well.
I always get disk read error has occured, press ctrl alt del to restart.

Everything is DCd Im gonna try booting into clover & then connecting win install media.

@jatt_ak47
Hi, please be sure to run the BDU on the same computer you wish to boot from it otherwise you will have hardware configuration issues.
be sure that the clover usb is the first boot device in the bios.
boot into clover with the windows install usb inserted clover should automatically create a boot entry in the menu for the windows 10 install usb select that. hopefully it will start loading the installer be sure that the windows 10 usb is formatted fat32 before running the windows media creation tool.

i hope this helps and i am sorry i can not be more specific without more information.

So I had to disable RAID & install directly on an HDD.
I can boot from Clover to Win10 now but clover cannot boot up windows 10 install from a usb key.

I just get a restart,

@sibliss

I’m probably just going to grab a 1tb SATA it’s only 15 less which is why I was so interested in the NVMe.

New here and going down the same road as having a system that is a rev behind in supporting NVMe boot. With that being said and after downloading the latest Clover Bootmanager (v5119), is there an updated guide from the original post as I know the drivers are slightly different…

I have a Rufus (v3.11) formatted and bootable USB stick as well as the directory structure for Clover in a folder, next steps?

Much appreciated…

@Steve7 the only part thats changed is the driver folders please see my pinned post with the blue text at the top of the op in this thread.

Ok, got it… Seems the EFI/Clover/drivers64UEFI folder works perfectly. Outside of that, I noticed in BIOS there is BOOT64x.efi, should that be copied as well or skip?
Also, in Clover (org) there is the config.list file and Clover64x.efi. I am assuming that I need to copy the clover64x.efi? Where in the structure does the config.list go?

@Steve7
if you followed the post and my update you shouldn’t need to touch any of the 64x.efi files the only config file we are concerned with is the config.plist file typically found in efi/clover/config.plist and it should already be there.

Hi @sibliss and others,

Thank you for your help on this great guide. I am however experiencing the problem that when I try to boot into clover it hangs. It will show a 6 with a blinking underscore besides it and freezes. Do you know a possible cause of this problem (or solution)? I have tried booting into clover multiple times to see if it would work since you advised to do so on a previous post.

My current setup is:
HP proliant DL360P G8
Gigabyte aorus rgb aic nvme ssd 512gb (goal for the OS)
4*2TB HDD (raid for storage)

Thanks a lot in advanced

sibliss,

Ok, I did the following… I followed your guide to the letter with BIOS setting CSM Disabled and "UEFI Only". When I booted, I received no operating system found.
With that being said, I did a process of elimination as follows: (with config.list in CLOVER dir)

EFI/CLOVER/drivers/UEFI/NvmExpressDxe.efi
EFI/CLOVER/drviers/off/MveExpressDxe.efi
EFI/CLOVER/drivers/BIOS/NvmExpressDxe.efi
EFI/CLOVER/drivers64UEFI/NvmExpressDxe.efi

- No boot, unable to find operating system

EFI/CLOVER/drivers/UEFI/NvmExpressDxe.efi
EFI/CLOVER/drviers/off/MveExpressDxe.efi
EFI/CLOVER/drivers/BIOS/NvmExpressDxe.efi
EFI/CLOVER/drivers64UEFI/NvmExpressDxe.efi
EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi

- Boots, but only shows CloverUSB icon and GPT partition "Data"

EFI/CLOVER/drivers/UEFI/NvmExpressDxe.efi
EFI/CLOVER/drviers/off/MveExpressDxe.efi
EFI/CLOVER/drivers/BIOS/NvmExpressDxe.efi
EFI/CLOVER/drivers64UEFI/NvmExpressDxe.efi
EFI/CLOVER/CLOVERX64.efi
EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi

- Boots, now shows all partitions, able to boot into Windows installed on NVME

Modified

EFI/CLOVER/drivers/UEFI/NvmExpressDxe.efi
EFI/CLOVER/CLOVERX64.efi
EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi

- Boots, same as above

For some reason, if I do not have the combo of BOOTX64 and CLOVER X64 on the stick, it will not boot correctly. I hit F2 to create the log and the volume scan reports that all volumes are GPT (I thought there might have been an MBR format). It also reads the config.list file correctly.

Maybe there was a change in the 5119 release or possibly due to Intel Q87 chipset?

I got my inspirion 580s to boot via NVME. (PCIE X 1; slower than the onboard SATAII but it is not about the speed now, it is about whether can I; 2nd post and is already not a question but an answer) I noticed the stickies does not cover certain critical parts i.e GPT format only AND having the BDU to be on the same PC as the NVME prior installing. So I recompiled the various threads after my toying of 2 days before my findings of GREAT SUCCESS (In Borat voice)


Mine is tested via legacy bios with a cheap Non Major branded NVME, no drivers available

For new install of windows 10, cannot be cloned over from current HDD/SSD and expect to boot up via NVME. I tried, it gave red words of death


NVME needs to be in GPT format, use diskpart then format to NTFS ; https://www.diskpart.com/diskpart/convert-gpt-4125.html Don’t need to partition the NVME drive into smaller bits, just one whole chunk of goodness.


After that

You can follow the thread; [Guide] NVMe-boot without modding your UEFI/BIOS (Clover-EFI bootloader method)

download and extract BDU and make into (MUST Be on same PC that you plan to install NVME when doing the bootable USB); http://cvad-mac.narod.ru/index/bootdiskutility_exe/0-5

follow the installation instructions:

1.
Insert the USB flash drive or SD-card into your machine.

2.
Open up BDU. (Boot Disk Utility)

2a.
Select your flash drive/harddisk. (For internal SATA-Devices, you need to go to Options > Configuration ; I managed to boot up via BDU 4411 and not latest version 5XXX > Enable Fixed Disks > OK.)

2b.
Smash the left click on “Format Disk” and wait for it.

2c.
When it’s done, check if you can see a 200MB Partition in your Windows Explorer with files in it. If that’s not the case, BDU failed. (This happened to me sometimes, when fooling around with different bootloader/filesystem-settings. Just boot a linuxbased distribution with (g)parted and wipe all partitions + create a ntfs filesystem on it. Else Windows f%#&s around.)

3.
Access your Cloverstick via Explorer.


3a. **I do abit differently here, download the zip and extract; nvm.efi
download from [Guide+Video] How to install windows on NVME SSD 960 EVO without clover on a board without NVMe support.


Copy the nvm.efi to:

\EFI\CLOVER\drivers64

I placed one more copy; nvm.efi onto top of directory of the flash drive

Once done, shut down, Remove your original bootable disk; SSD or HDD, your nvme should be already on the adaptor on your pcie slot.

Plug in both USB Bootable BDU and Windows 10 installation media; https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10 or your preferred Rufus-ed Bootable Windows installation USB. (I have not tried DVD)

Go to your Bios, the rest all disable and boot via USB (You must be able to differentiate between your BDU USB and Windows Bootable USB)

After this you should boot into Clover.



Clover > exit clover > Boot Manager > Boot File from > Clover (Header of a huge chunk of directory); NVM.EFI (top of directory as i mentioned before, I think if you can’t see this nvm.efi or further into \EFI\CLOVER\drivers64, there is something wrong, maybe you had played with the EFI shell at earlier stage; fs0; load nvm.efi , map -r, etc… which I had tried as well but remapped until screwed up)

After that go back to…

Boot Manager > Boot File from > Windows 10 (Header of a huge chunk of directory) > EFI > bootx64.efi

it should bring you to the windows 10 installation. Once here you are THERE. Your NVME partition will be part of the selection. Play around and you will bypass the greyed out NEXT and proceed to install onto the NVME



I copied certain portion from other threads/posts and I give credits to the original posters.

Hope the rest who couldn’t will be able to achieve now. Let me know ya?




That is correct, it means you managed to get it boot, but you need to wait awhile since 6 = 6 secs then you will be able to proceed. Did you wait beyond 10 seconds?

Hey hey! New to this forum- Absolutely amazing work that you guys are doing here, I can’t appreciate it enough.
I was wondering if somebody would be able to help me diagnose some issues with my setup.
My system is an AMD FX-6300 and an Asus M5A97 LE R2.0, some crappy AliExpress SATA SSD that I’m working from, as well as a Crucial P1 NVMe SSD (what I’m trying to boot from). After several failed attempts of adding custom BIOS to my PC to add support for my NVMe drive, I came across this thread!

Fast-forward to now- I’ve been trying to get Clover set up with my PC. I’ve followed all steps a couple times now (including sibliss’ additional statement) with no luck. The driver is in the 4 different folders. Here’s the issue: I can boot fine to Clover, which detects any and all drives connected (Windows 10 installation USB stick, NVMe SSD and SATA SSD.) However, when I try to boot from the Windows installation USB device through Clover- I get a black screen & blinking cursor, which just hangs until I reboot. The Clover USB stick shows up twice in my BIOS boot options (UEFI device and non-UEFI device? Not sure why it shows twice). Both boot Clover fine. The UEFI one gives a black screen and blinking cursor, while the non-UEFI one gives the message “A disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart” when I select the Windows Install USB stick.
Booting to the installation USB works just fine if I go directly from my BIOS boot options, obviously not allowing me to install to my NVMe SSD.

I have gone through this with two different Windows 10 installation USB sticks, both give the same issue.
Wondering if anybody has some insight into this, it would be very much appreciated!!

@Thom
Hello and welcome to the community,
many people are reporting this issue and although i personally did not encounter this issue using the dvd installation media, I have tried with usb installation media (made with MCT) with a few installs and had varying results.
I am not sure why these errors are occurring or what the underlying issue my be.
Side note. the clover usb shows twice in your bios because it is both a uefi(efi) device and a legacy bios boot device since this is how we intentionally set it up if you followed my instructions in the sticky.

@Meowster
I believe the screen that shows a 6 is actually in relation to the boot6 method used in clover and in most cases the boot will simple failover in a small period of time but it does sometimes hang. Again i am no clover expert and i am not that intricately familiar with clovers workings. however i believe it is possible to fix this behavior via the config.plist somehow but i have not been able to figure that one out as yet.

@sibliss Thanks for getting back to me quickly, it’s much appreciated! I created a new bootable with a different version of Win 10 using Rufus. I was able to install it just fine and it was working in no time at all with Clover booting to my NVMe drive! Just a new Windows image on my USB stick did the trick. I’m not sure why this happened either, but I’m glad it’s working now. Thanks again, your dedication here is unmatched- keep it up!

@sibliss @Lost_N_BIOS I manage to install windows on it. I changed my gpu to rtx 2060 and the problems disappeared. Now i have another one. When i try to do something that is demanding to the nvme(reads and/or writes) he freezes then blue screen. I tried to use it just as an additional driver but i get the same problem except that when booting from windows on my sata ssd and try to open a game or unreal engine(for example) that i stored on the nvme, it freezes then the drive becomes irresponsive but windows still running fine…

my system: GA 970 ds3p fx 2.1 F1 - fx 8320 - rtx 2060

@ijokerboy well done, this new error is either a driver problem for your nvme remember to install vendor drivers for your adapter card in Windows. Which adapter card are you using for your nvme ? Not all adpater cards work properly with this there are some cheap china ones that I know of which do not work.

i have two different models. I think it’s a dead end man… I believe its my motherboard that somehow cant handle when my graphics card has to work. The nvme just freezes and disconect itself… i bought two asgard nvme’s and they dont’y have their own drivers so im stuck with generic standard nvme driver from windows… T_T