[Guide+Video] How to install windows on NVME SSD 960 EVO without clover on a board without NVMe support.

there are still a lot of motherboard that do not support booting from nvm express.
that is the reason for this tutorial.
what you need is nvmexpressdxe.x64.efi and a build in EFI shell.

-choose for EFI shell.

-fs0:

-after entering dir you see this:

-load NVM.EFI (this is the driver but I changed the name)

-map -r (your mapping table wil be refreshed and new file systems will emerge. you are still on fs0: but this is not the same one.

-enter dir again and you will notice that you find yourself in the setup partition.

-after “cd efi”, “cd boot” and “dir” you will see this:

-just enter that green file and setup will start.

als de computer reboot is het min of meer het zelfde alleen moet je voor de partitie met de EFI folder kiezen in mijn geval fs2:.
dit is ook de manier om windows op te starten.

here are some results:


here I boot windows with the help of a USB drive with the nvmexpressdxe.x64.efi on it.
No other drives are attached other then the samsung 960 NVMe and the USB drive with only nvmexpressdxe.x64.efi.
the USB drive I take off directly after loading the driver.



download and unzip this file

here the video of the installation:

it is always the same procedure in the efi shell.
you can also only enter bootx64 as long you are in the correct fs.


EDIT by Fernando: Thread stickied and title customized

nvm.zip (15.6 KB)

2 Likes

[[File:Nvm.jpg|none|fullsize]][[File:Nvm.jpg|none|auto]]-clean SSD with diskpart.
-set offline in disk management.
I already prepared hyper-v and show you all the settings.
-start hyper-v and install.
-turn the SSD online again and you see the partitions
-shut down your PC and disconnect all your drives other then the samsung 960.
-use a usb drive with nvmexpressdxe.x64.efi on it to install this with efi shell.
-bootx64 and windows will finish the installation.


download and unzip this file.

nvm.zip (15.6 KB)

@tele2 :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum and thank you very much for taking the time to write such impressive guide and to create a video clip about how to do it.
The interested users with an NVMe SSD will enjoy it.

To make it as easy as possible to find your NVMe guides within this already very big Forum, I have recently created this new Sub-Forum about the topic "NVMe Support without BIOS Modding".
Enjoy the Forum and the feedback you hopefully will get from users, who followed your guide.

Thanks again!
Dieter (alias Fernando)

@tele2 :
Thanks for this additional guide and for having created and attached the related Video - well done!

I am very happy to help Fernando.

Hello all, new at the forum; was pointed here from several posts at the HP forum, so hoping maybe someone here might have some helpful tips for me.

I got a HP Z420 workstation with an Intel Xeon E5-1620 v2 CPU and the newest AMI bios for the workstation (v3.91) installed (however, modded with an NVMe module added - I found this binary on the mentioned HP forum - I’ve also tried with a binary that I modded myself according to the guide in the OP). I’m trying to get a Samsung 960 PRO (connected through an ASUS Hyper M.2 X4 MINI M.2-PCIe-adapter) to work with the workstation, but seems like I’m doing something wrong (maybe the BIOS settings?). When trying to install Win10 x64, the installer finds the drive during the install and lets me partition and format it, but when it reaches the point where a reboot is necessary, the drive isn’t found any longer, hence something isn’t working as intended. Now, I don’t know if it’s possible to get this drive to work with this system at all, but I hope so, and want to try a bit more before I give up and use the drive for something else.

Has anyone tried this combination before and got it working? If not, any suggestions on what I can try in order to get this working? Any specific options I need to activate/deactivate in the BIOS? (I’ve tried as best I can to change the settings according to the OP, but some settings aren’t available - or at least have a different name on my system, so not sure if I’ve managed to get it all right).

Regards,
VE.

@voideater :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!

Since I have never had a HP workstation with an Intel Xeon CPU and never tried to get Win10 installed onto an NVMe SSD with this system, I cannot answer your questions, but I hope, that someone else has some experience with such hardware combination and will give you some tips.

Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)

One user on the HP forum claimed he got it working, but he hasn’t responded to my post there (yet). Also sent a PM hoping it improves my chances of getting an answer.

I assume it’s the BIOS settings that are the remaining part, but since I don’t have any clues on what the different options does I haven’t tried it all, yet. If I get an answer from the other guy, or find a solution myself I’ll post it here so others can benefit from it. Getting very time consuming now, and really annoying, argh.

Got an answer from the guy on the HP, he had used a Samsung 950 and not the 960, thus nothing to gain there.

Anyhow, I managed to boot the device by using the guide described in [Guide+Video] How to install windows on NVME SSD 960 EVO without clover on a board without NVMe support., however, doing this on every boot isn’t really an option, so not sure how I should solve this. While in Win10 on the disk I also updated the FW for the disk, but still no luck.

Is there a way to get the BIOS to load this NVMe.efi module automatically on startup?

Update. See now that the Clover-method loads the NVMe.efi and lets you boot up your device, but this means I need to have the USB stick plugged in at all times - there’s no solution besides this? Or any suggestions on what I can try?

@voideater :
Since you obviously have used the method of this thread to get your NVMe SSD working, I have moved your last posts and my reply into this thread.
Maybe the thread opener can helpyou to solve your problem.



Yup. Ended up with an USB stick plugged in that got DUET UEFI shell and a startup-script that loads the NVMe modoule and then boots the OS from the 960 Pro. Not optimal, but don’t se any other way as of now to solve this without having a stick plugged in for booting up the system. At least I don’t reboot so often, so it’s not a big hassle to either let it be plugged in at all times or just plug it in when I need to do a reboot.

If you have other drives then the samsung attached you can also load nvm.efi from there and then map -r and bootx64.

Trying to get Windows Server 2016 to install on an HP z820 workstation using Clover.

The following things don’t work:

Default: Windows server 2016 thumbdrive boots, finds the Samsung drive but refuses to install to it ("Your system doesn’t support booting, enable driver in BIOS’)

Modding the BIOS as described elsewhere on these forums-- modded BIOS won’t flash (presumably because unsigned.)

Clover method: Using method described in this thread, including the NVME driver, the system will boot to Clover and load the driver; BUT
the USB thumbdrive for Server 2016 doesn’t work: Clover only recognizes “Legacy HD1”, which appears and disappears like my thumbdrive, but attempting to boot it only displays a (grey, non-Microsoft looking) Windows logo and hangs. Changing USB ports (2/3) makes no difference. FWIW, the USB is NTFS formatted because it has to be based on the size of the files on the iso.

I did find one post mentioning that DVD boot works using this method and tried it (with a Win 7 DVD): that seemed to work: Clover could boot the DVD (I didn’t actually install the OS). The windows server ISO is too large for a DVD though (5.2 GB > 4.7).

HP zX20 workstations are common and so are Samsung 960 Evo’s-- I can’t be the first to encounter this. Any advice much appreciated.

[Guide+Video] How to install windows on NVME SSD 960 EVO without clover on a board without NVMe support.
this is the title of this thread ergo without clover.
so take the steps from the beginning and then tell me were it goes wrong.
and a USB stick is not required.
approach the samsung with an other windows an make a partition of 5 MB or so and dump the content of your server 2016 ISO on it.
copy nvm.efi to usb and detach all your other drives.
then in EFI shell fs0:, load nvm.efi, unplug the USB, map -r and then bootx64 and your setup will start.
when in setup you can proceed with selecting the remaining part of your samsung or some of it for installation.
the setup partition you can later delete, merge or leave it for the future.

This method requires UEFI BIOS or legacy BIOS also ok?

unfortunately no legacy beavis.
this is very bad.

-use a usb drive with nvmexpressdxe.x64.efi on it to install this with efi shell.
-bootx64 and windows will finish the installation.

I do not understand these steps, please help me.

you must approach the usb drive with the efi shell entering fs0: in my case and then enter load nvmexpressdxe.x64.efi. (I renamed it to nvm.efi in my case)
this will install the driver.
after that you do map -r
now the samsung appears and due to mapping it is fs0 so the USB is not fs0 anymore!
enter bootx64 and it boots.

Finally, it works, [SAMSUNG EVO 960 (pcie X4) + AMD M5A99X EVO r2.0 + FX 8320e] but not with your driver, use this NvmExpressDxe-64 (Extracted to CLOVER), your method is a very simple and fast way to run the M.2 . Thanks for everything.

Hi I have the same setup as you HP Z420 workstation and Samsung evo 960 but I cant get it working been trying for a week now so frustrated. after the shell starts as soon as I load the driver I get black screen and crash. please help if you can what are the bios stings that I need to make this work and is there anything else I need to do. latest bios 3.91 arrgh computers!

EDIT by Fernando: Unneeded part of the fully quoted post and blank lines removed (to save space)