Installing Windows10 on new nvme drive
Installing Windows10 on new nvme drive
Hello!
Many years ago, you assisted me in assembling my PC. Now, I'm planning some upgrades.
My system runs a Gigabyte GA-H67A-UD3H-B3 motherboard with Windows 7. I've updated the BIOS.
I recently purchased an NVMe adapter and a WD_BLACK SN850x SSD. I installed it in the PCI x16 slot, formatted the MBR, assigned it, and can see the drive (K:/).
After downloading the Windows 10 installation media, I placed it on a USB drive and booted from it. The installer appears, but when attempting to install the OS on my new NVMe drive (K:/), it shows an error:
"Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The computer's hardware does not support booting to this disk."
I've read about UEFI and CSM/legacy, but I'm still unsure. I made a few adjustments that almost stopped me from getting back to Windows 7.
Could you help? What might I be missing or what details should I provide for better diagnosis?
Suggested to use GPT instead of MBR. Before setting up Windows, disconnect all other drives and boot from a USB with a genuine Windows version. UEFI is the current standard for running systems via GPT. MBR has its constraints.
The board features Hybrid EFI with certain UEFI capabilities, though it was released before the full UEFI standard. There are some requests for BIOS modifications on similar boards to incorporate the necessary UEFI NVMe module, but this is currently not feasible. In reality, UEFI is not strictly necessary for booting from an NVMe drive, although in legacy BIOS mode any NVMe storage would require a legacy OPROM to be accessible, which is uncommon and only found in specific models such as Samsung 950 Pro or Plextor M8Pe. This would also need an MBR.
So perhaps I just purchased an additional 1TB of storage.
It seems odd there are two more drives connected to my PC through USB, but they didn’t trigger the same warning about installation failure, unlike the NVMe ones.
I didn’t attempt to install on them, though I might try moving my data and see if it works.
Is this a pointless task? I believe one of these could actually be an SSD connected via SATA rather than USB.
Windows isn't really meant to be installed on an external USB drive, yet Linux works fine. The BIOS recognizes USB devices but misses the NVMe one, preventing the installer from accessing it. Once Windows loads the driver, it becomes visible within the system. The provided link shared several methods for placing the boot sector and driver on a USB stick to start an OS on an otherwise non-bootable NVMe drive.
Windows isn't really able to be put on an external USB, but Linux works that way. If required, it can be installed, run, and operated from a USB drive with the help of other programs.
Sure, adjusting the install media with some third-party tools could allow OP to run Win 11 on unsupported hardware in a similar manner, by skipping the safeguards or deceiving the installer. Of course, this won’t be as stable as using the official process, but it might work temporarily. Microsoft previously offered a portable Windows version on a USB drive called Windows To Go, though it wasn’t as dependable as booting Linux directly; they now recommend Windows PE instead.
This highlights how Windows can detect USB external drives through the BIOS, something it can’t do with NVMe devices. If OP had attempted to install Windows using the official media, the process would have failed due to unsupported features.