boot from USB to boot from NVMe?

Let see if I understood correctly:
- The laptop has only a M.2 slot and it works only with M.2 SATA SSDs, but doesn't with M.2 NVMe SSDs.
- There is no 2.5" SATA drives.
- You want to boot from a USB flash drive and transfer the boot sequence to a M.2 NVMe SSD, correct?

Megahertz said:

Let see if I understood correctly:
- The laptop has only a M.2 slot and it works only with M.2 SATA SSDs, but doesn't with M.2 NVMe SSDs.
- There is no 2.5" SATA drives.
- You want to boot from a USB flash drive and transfer the boot sequence to a M.2 NVMe SSD, correct?

yes. the laptop can accept a NVMe ssd and can read/write to it, but the EFI firmware is blocked from launching the OS loader if it's on the NVMe drive.
And i know this works because people who have this laptop on very old firmware versions could get it to boot by mashing the escape key to bypass the block, but a firmware update patched that workaround.

I have an NVMe SSD. I just inserted a USB flash drive with a FAT32 partition on it. My Windows on the NVMe SSD is C: drive. The USB flash drive got drive letter F:. I just ran the command:

Code:

bcdboot C:\Windows /s F: /f UEFI

I rebooted my computer from the flash drive and it booted into Windows on my NVMe SSD. That's all you need to do.

NavyLCDR said:

I have an NVMe SSD. I just inserted a USB flash drive with a FAT32 partition on it. My Windows on the NVMe SSD is C: drive. The USB flash drive got drive letter F:. I just ran the command:

Code:

bcdboot C:\Windows /s F: /f UEFI

I rebooted my computer from the flash drive and it booted into Windows on my NVMe SSD. That's all you need to do.

That is what I meant on post #6
As OP doesn't have a working Windows, he probably must install the Boot Manager on the USB drive using a Win 10 installation drive and running Diskpart - list volume to find the NVMe and USB drive letters under WinPE.

NavyLCDR said:

I have an NVMe SSD. I just inserted a USB flash drive with a FAT32 partition on it. My Windows on the NVMe SSD is C: drive. The USB flash drive got drive letter F:. I just ran the command:

Code:

bcdboot C:\Windows /s F: /f UEFI

I rebooted my computer from the flash drive and it booted into Windows on my NVMe SSD. That's all you need to do.

That works! Thanks!

FuturDreamz said:

That works! Thanks!

Glad it worked for you! I'd recommend this little guy if you are going to stick with USB flash drive booting:
SanDisk Cruzer Fit USB 32GB Flash Drive

I use them as my boot devices for my TrueNAS server.

NavyLCDR said:

I have an NVMe SSD. I just inserted a USB flash drive with a FAT32 partition on it. My Windows on the NVMe SSD is C: drive. The USB flash drive got drive letter F:. I just ran the command:

Code:

bcdboot C:\Windows /s F: /f UEFI

I rebooted my computer from the flash drive and it booted into Windows on my NVMe SSD. That's all you need to do.

Older ASUS motherboard M5A99FX Pro R2.0 latest BIOS (UEFI)
Samsung EVO 960 250GB SSD on a simple NVMe slot adaptor in a PCIe x8 slot.
Works well in Windows as a storage drive.

I ran the command using the Windows Drive names
SSD F:\
USB G:\

It attempted to boot off the SSD and failed. I believe it was expecting it to be C:\. Blue screen with the option to repair/try again/etc...

So, how would you go about it if you were running Win 10 from your hard drive (C:\) and your SSD that had windows installed was on F:\

The SSD already has Win 10 installed as UEFI, the installer worked flawlessly (I think).

@Mark Farrell

modified bios for Asus M5 A99FX Pro 2.0 Rev 1.01 includes nvme support