Starting Windows from an M.2 NVMe SSD on an MSI MB drive.
Starting Windows from an M.2 NVMe SSD on an MSI MB drive.
Hello everyone,
Yesterday I began attempting to clone my Windows 11 onto a new M.2 NVMe drive I purchased (you can find the Reddit post here). However, I wasn’t able to make progress, so I opted for a clean installation instead.
I’ve explored various options I found online and on other forums, but nothing seems to work. I used a UFEI bootable USB, tried connecting both SATA SSDs, adjusted BIOS settings (as recommended), and changed several configurations—though I can’t recall the details anymore since it’s late at night.
In Disk Manager, I noticed partitions created after installing Windows 11, showing standard folders and files. But when I removed all my SATA SSDs and tried booting from the M.2 slot, nothing happened. In BIOS I see it listed as connected, but I can’t select it as a bootable device.
My motherboard is an MSI MAG X570 TOMAHAWK WIFI, paired with a 1TB Kingston KC3000 M.2 SSD. The CPU is a Ryzen 9 5960X. I really appreciate any assistance you can provide.
Do you have another version of Windows installed on the same computer?
You might try using the free version of easybcd, which lets you create an MBR (boot block) on the NVMe drive and set up or repair the BCD store in the boot menu.
This can be done with recovery tools and "dos" commands, but it’s quite complex for someone not experienced with that.
bcdstore commands
I received the win 11 installation on the M.2 drive. I needed to update the BIOS and apply secure erase+ to format it, then installed using a flash drive and everything functioned properly.