Chino wrote:
Are you installing Windows in UEFI mode?

The R3E BIOS is conventional. It doesn't (seem to) have a UEFI mode AFAIK.

Menthol wrote:
I am not sure an NVME drive is compatible with your system, if you start Windows install and select custom install to select which drive to install on and the drive is not visible you may be out of luck

Hmm, I haven't tried installing at all as yet - just trying to find that drive to boot from (after which I'd planned to install the OS). I should remove all drives, leaving the NVME in and try to see if that might work as is. Will report back after trying.

lsiravi wrote:
Hmm, I haven't tried installing at all as yet - just trying to find that drive to boot from (after which I'd planned to install the OS). I should remove all drives, leaving the NVME in and try to see if that might work as is. Will report back after trying.

Nope - Windows said:

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu

In other words, I was on the right track earlier. If I want to use this SSD as my primary drive, I need to find a way to add it to the Boot Priority, which is exactly what I am unable to do! 😞

Any help appreciated!.

Thanks in advance.

Chino wrote:
There's a guide to install boot an NVMe M.2 SSD on a legacy X58 chipset. However, I'm not sure if it would work with an Intel 750 though.

Ahh - Duet based. I did briefly think of this, but abandoned it early (I forget for what reason). Perhaps it is time to give it another try.

Thanks for the pointer.

Trouble in paradise (paradise?)

First, Duet was a wash. It didn't create the USB stick successfully no matter what. I tried probably 15 different sticks USB2, USB3, 100MB to 8GB. None were created successfully - first step fail (variably either MBR or DBR).

Next, I got a Clover based image and created a bootable USB stick - and this was successful (as tested on a different machine as well). But the RIIIE refuses to boot on it, despite the BIOS recognizing a "Storage Device" along with KB and mouse on USB. My boot options are set to Removable Device, CDROM, HDD in that order. I tried every available port methodically. None worked - front, back, USB2, USB3 - nothing.

Finally, I tried hitting F8 during the POST screen and my USB showed up as a boot device, from which I can boot Clover (but this can be a problem if I can't set the RIIIE to boot from USB automatically).

Unfortunately, while clover gives me the option to boot from the connected NVME device, that doesn't help since I can't even install windows without it being a boot drive.

After this, I had no specific use for Clover, so I went back to the UEFI screen. Within this screen, I had expected to find options to basically add my NVME drive to the boot list, so I could boot from USB, install Windows on the NVMe drive. But unfortunately, this is not the case. If this needs /further/ modifications to get first the NVME driver, and then boot USB, install on NVMe, that is way too much complication.

Is there a soft-UEFI that is better suited than Duet/Clover, with better, auto-loading NVMe Drivers, which will give me the boot options I need?

Thanks again!

Whew! After a weekend of fiddling, I finally have it exactly where I want it. The detail:

The starting point was Chino's suggestion of Duet. That, unfortunately, was a wash - I never was able to create a Duet USB boot disk since it repeatedly failed in the MBR or DBR stages with a variety of USB disks from 60MB to 16GB. However, I soon switched to an followup utility called Clover.

Clover is a Hackintosh tool (apparently) to help you boot MacOS and Windows in parallel. I had no interest in hackintosh, and while Clover is also confusing and has no clear instructions to creating a boot disk, I found a utility called BDU by a certain 'cvad' that downloaded the latest Clover and created my boot disk.

With Clover, and all disks but the NVMe disconnected, I was able to boot (problems with this, but later), and drop down to the EFI Shell. Once there, I was able to use the guide Chino linked to load the NVMe and USB3 Drivers and boot the USB Windows Install stick. This started the Windows 10 install, but there was another wrinkle. I tried to install windows on the NVMe Disk non-desctructively, but that didn't fly. So I had to start diskpart, 'clean' the disk and 'convert gpt' it. After this, Windows installed - and quickly some 7-8 minutes.

[Here, I commited a blunder; I rehooked my previous Windows disk and rebooted. The USB bypassed and booted the old windows. Nevertheless, I copied over all my data (some ~50GB in 15-20 minutes, I think) and rebooted into the NVMe Disk. This is a no go. Not only did windows jettison the files I copied over, it also corrupted windows somehow (Edge/IE wouldn't start, for example). So I had to go back to the first step and reinstall windows like before]

It must be noted that when windows reboots during install, I needed to boot through the USB, drop down to the EFI Shell again, load the NVMe Driver and this time boot through the NVMe SSD (rather than the USB the first time). Since boot is not automated (yet) this is a manual step that does not have a parallel in conventional install.

Once Windows was installed again, I rebooted into the new NVMe Windows and with my old disks hooked back up again, copied over my data again, this time successfully. So my Windows was all good, but my boot was still bad.

Up until now, the USB for some reason wouldn't boot automatically and I had to hit F8 at POST to get the system to boot from the USB. This was the case even with all other drives removed, and boot order set to Removable Device, SCSI Card. I ended up fiddling with USB settings, and setting USB mode to 'Floppy' - the other modes (CDROM, Force Floppy, HDD, etc) wouldn't work - which made the system boot the USB automatically.

Now clover, as I mentioned is a complex animal, and has a lot of junk in it. I removed most of said junk and kept only the NVMe (NVMe is not enabled by default) driver (to which I later added a USB 3 driver in case I want to boot USB and a SATA driver - I need to clone a SATA drive), then fiddled with the config.plist settings in Clover to basically get the correct drive to boot, and boot automatically (I had to get the SSD UUID from mountvol.exe for this step). Note that you will always boot from the Windows EFI partition in Clover, not from the main C drive.

Now all done, the USB Boot drive is a permanent fixture in one of the USB ports of the machine and the machine boots Windows 10 on the SSD automatically, with the USB drive in place. I made a couple of copies of the USB drive just in case too.

Whew (again)! Done and dusted. And yes, it /is/ possible 🙂