Hello everyone. I signed up today in hopes to get some help with my issues. I've followed this thread, and many others, for a week or two trying to get booted up on a new NVMe drive. I have worked almost 5 straight days trying to get Duet/Refind, among a gazillion other things, to work. I have so far been unsuccessful in booting Windows 10. At this point, I need help understanding what to change, or to be told to take a hike. I really don't mind which one. I hopefully can return the gear I've purchased, but more than anything, I've lost 5 days of my life doing something that should have taken a half hour. I'm looking for a reality check here. What can I do to make this work...or...return your product and move on. Either way.
My system:
Intel Core i7 930
AS Rock X58 Extreme (Rev 13) - Southbridge 82801JR (ICH10R) Rev. 00
LPCIO ( IT82720)
BIOS ( AMI v. 2.90)
12GB RAM - DDR3 Triple Channel
GPU - Radeon RX 460

I have various Sata drives including a Samsung EVO SSD. I have tried removing them, disabling SATA altogether, etc. I have made so many different changes in the BIOS. I've tried so many different versions of DUET and REFIND among numerous other options.

My NVMe adapter is a RIITOP PCIe M.2 NVMw to PCIe 3.0 card. (Model: M2TPCE 16X) amazon dot com -> /gp/product/B07GFDVXVJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I have tried 2 different ADATA NVMe chips. XPG SX6000 256GB and the XPG SX8200 Pro.

In short, I can boot with numerous different versions and "see" the nvme drive..even though most of the time, there seems to be quite the delay. I can boot from multiple different versions of DUET/REFIND, then put in a USB stick with Win10 files ( RUFUS, Media Creation, AIO Boot, etc.)... I've tried so many different ways. I can boot up, see my NVMe drive, I can see an additional USB drive with some mechanic to install Win10, I can boot said device into a Win10 installation, etc.. I can install Win10 on the NVMe with no issues. When I reboot, DUET/Refind "sees" the .efi file sitting on the NVMe drive for Win10, but never boots. I get a BCD error indicating I have a faulty Win10 installation that needs to be repaired. I've even used scripts with DISM to push a Win10 install to the NVMe drive after properly formatting, etc. All that works with ease in so many different ways. I can boot into DUET and then boot into AIO or many different items including a Rufus created Win10 USB drive, a MS created "Media Creation" drive, AIO's multiple different options for UEFI WinPE, Installation, etc... The point is, I have very little issue seeing the drive, pushing data to the drive, installing Windows, using the drive inside my existing Win10 installation, etc..

I've lost almost a week of my life simply trying to get an install to "boot" correctly. I have yet to get past the reboot after installing Windows. I've tried to manipulate the BCD files, etc. I'm flat stuck and would really appreciate some help or to be told to kick rocks because this isnt going to work. I previously tried the smaller XPG drive in a USB 3 external bay that is UASP capable. That didn't work either which led to me buying this NVMe adapter after wasting two days.
Thank you in advance for any advice.

Works perfectly. Now the question is, is it possible to make it boot without the USB drive plugged in?

Not sure if that was meant for me or not. I continue to fight with my issues. I have absolutely no problems booting to duet USB, mounting any number of Win10 install mediums, and I can easily install Win10 on the nvme drive. It will not boot off the nvme drive though. I continue to be presented with a BCD error. I've messed around with the BCD file attempting to disable integrity checks and driver signing with no improvement.
Anyone know of something I can do to fix this? It seems super simple, but I cannot get windows to move past the BCD screen after the installation finishes and reboots the first time.

Zitat von Megash0n im Beitrag #888

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Not sure if that was meant for me or not. I continue to fight with my issues. I have absolutely no problems booting to duet USB, mounting any number of Win10 install mediums, and I can easily install Win10 on the nvme drive. It will not boot off the nvme drive though. I continue to be presented with a BCD error. I've messed around with the BCD file attempting to disable integrity checks and driver signing with no improvement.
Anyone know of something I can do to fix this? It seems super simple, but I cannot get windows to move past the BCD screen after the installation finishes and reboots the first time.

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Thank you. I've tried a half dozen USB sticks. I've reset my bios I've disabled just about everything I can. I've probably spent 6 10+ hour days trying to get this to work. It's really weird. I can boot to into Duet fine. I can see the nvme drive with the EFI bootloader sitting on the fat32 EFI partition. If I add ntfs.efi, I can also see the windows volume as well. I can navigate to the winload.efi, but that doesn't work either. I've tried completely disabling sata altogether.
Whether I use my AIO created drive that has winPE in uefi mode, windows created boot USB, Rufus using uefi boot, and lastly, using disk part and dism to push the install... Every single method does the same thing. It boots into duet or duet/refind, I can launch the install from USB perfectly fine, install finishes, and when it reboots... BCD error after it stalls for about a minute or two.
Inside my normal legacy win10 install, I can see all my volumes on the nvme drive. I can get high hundreds of throughput with 4k reads and writes, and about 1.5 GB/s with 8k. Iops are well over 100k. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong. I originally tried this with the adata nvme inside a USB 3.x UASP capable external drive using a pcie USB adapter. This resulted in the same thing. I assumed it was the USB 3 external drive, so I bought a $15 nvme adapter. I thought I was going to strike gold, but no... I cannot make it work. After install, launching efi\boot\bootx64 or bootmgfw.efi just brings me to a BCD error. I spent many hours trying to recreate BCD with many different options. I even tried to replace the efi partition with refind, and that didn't work either. I'm at a loss and really have no clue what to do now. I'm sure it is something small that I'm overlooking.

Are there other Asrock x58 Extreme users here that have this working that can lend a hand?

I either get this or a BCD booting error. Long delay after selecting the win10 efi boot option, and then this error.
I tried 4 different versions of duet/refind and the Clover Boot Disk Utility today. Three seperate installs of win10. My last attempt, just now, was with BDU. It wouldn't boot windows, so I popped in the Rufus win10 enterprise USB and let it do a fresh install. It doesn't seem to matter what I use. I can boot into installs just fine, but as soon as the PC wants to reboot, I'm out of luck. This time I have tried with all sata disconnected... And then I actually disabled all sata once that didn't work. I also attempt to launch either the bootx64.efi or the bootmgfw.efi manually. Am I supposed to be making some super secret change to the system EFI partition after install? Does it need some sort of modification? I'm so confused as to why I have no issue launching Rufus (win10 install) in efi mode, along with WinPE 10. I
Anyone?

I am by no means the authority on this subject, but for lack of other responses and my similar experience of frustration two weeks ago I'll throw my hat in the ring.

When you say that you can "install" windows via these various methods, I'm reading that you successfully begin and progress through the install process, but as it reboots as part of the installation you run into the errors noted? If so, that would imply that you are not actually completing the successful and finished installation. If I am incorrect and that post "installation" you have an operating desktop experience, and then have subsequent problems booting via Duet/Clover, etc., I can't be of any help. Otherwise read on...

My solution to an even more troubled duet install failure was to place both a Sata drive and NVMe drive in the system, then...

1) Fresh install Windows on regular Sata drive with an MBR. Once at a working installation, and with my NVMe drive visible in the system,

2) I then installed and used Minitool Partition Wizard to adjust the size and shift the partitions. That is, the three new partitions (1st being the system at approx 128MB, 2nd being the main boot c: partition, and 3rd being the recovery partition of about 500MB)
a) Shrink the primary C: partition by 2-300MB,
b) Then moved C: partition to create > 200MB unallocated space at the beginning of the drive making room for the EFI partition that will be populated when converting to GPT.

3) I then installed and used Macrium Reflect to clone the Sata drive to the NVMe drive. The NVMe is then also an MBR disk, which we need to fix, but it has the complete Windows installation of the same three partitions.

4) I used Powershell command line tool MBR2GPT to convert the NVMe disk to GPT type. Do a search for MBR2GPT and follow MSFT instructions. Pretty self explanatory.

5) I then created my duet/clover usb drive and shut down the computer. On rebooting, I enter the bios and adjust the boot settings to first boot the duet/clover usb. I Save settings and exit bios to continue system boot. The Duet/Clover GUI presents and identified the EFI partition on the NVMe drive. On selection It booted into windows successfully with Clover. I never succeeded in this step with any of the duet-refind versions.

6) (Optional) I again used Minitool PW on NVMe drive to delete the old MBR 128MB windows system partition and move/resize the C: partition to claim all space on the drive.

7) (Optional) I went into the clover config.plist file and set the <boot><timeout> to "0" Result is a seamless boot experience into windows.

One of the key benefits to me was that I didn't have to deselect any bios options such as VTd, VTx as I actually use the virtualization in windows.

Zitat von billbobjune im Beitrag #893

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When you say that you can "install" windows via these various methods, I'm reading that you successfully begin and progress through the install process, but as it reboots as part of the installation you run into the errors noted? If so, that would imply that you are not actually completing the successful and finished installation. If I am incorrect and that post "installation" you have an operating desktop experience, and then have subsequent problems booting via Duet/Clover, etc., I can't be of any help.

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Holy smokes. This whole time it was a messed up BCD file. After reading the last recommendation, I dug back into "why" I couldn't boot. I decided to manually create my BCD file using BootICE with another machine. The nvme installation worked the first time. What a headache! But, I'm glad it is booting now. Thanks to everyone for the advice.

As an update, I can't seem to keep this stable using Clover. Everything was fine until I installed my video card drivers. After a reboot, I'm getting BCD errors and what not. Sometimes, I can just hit the enter key to continue when it says there is an error that needs to be repaired and it boots on up ( prior to the video card drivers)
I can sometimes boot into the recovery partition. I've checked the BCD file, and it seems to be in check. I've recently disabled driver signing and preboot malware in hopes that would fix it.
It would seem as if something is getting modified in the Clover "firmware" or NVRam that is throwing me off. I'm not entirely sure what all I can or cannot disable for a windows 10 only boot. I'm really close to giving up due to the countless days I've spent trying to figure this out. It's really fast when it works, but currently... It's dead.

Hi, I'd like to convert my current Clover installation to DUET/REFINED but I haven't quite grasped what and which part(s) of the DUET or REFINED instructions I might need to use (from the original post/video) and reading and searching through some of the pages here haven't really given me any further clues on how to switch from Clover.

I assume it should be a relatively easy task to switch over my current Windows 10 install SSD without too much trouble but I need couple of pointers to help me along:

I have a Dell 7610 with EFI (or legacy BIOS if wanted) but no NVME support, booting from a Samsung 970 EVO Plus (partitioned as GPT) into Win10 (via Clover sitting on a small internal mSata drive). I set it up in June 2019 and it has worked fine all this time but recently I tried a Mac virtualisation with Virtual Box and I think Clover is interfering with things as Virtual Box fails to find the VHDs. As DUET/REFINED seems a simpler system I am wondering if it will be better in the long run and I've never quite liked the idea that the Clover system is basically a trimmed down Hackintosh hack.

Any pointers as to the best path to follow for my intended switchover? I'm thinking it should be a simple enough process and I probably won't even need to back up my system before trying (or can things sometimes go badly?).

I just bought an 950 Pro today, second hand from another owner.
Im about to use it in my X58 gaming rig (Asus P6X58D-Premium), and was wondering if updating the firmware on the 950 Pro would perhaps break legacy bios functionality.. ?
Anyone can perhaps confirm this.. ?
Seems like Samsung made also a firmware update for this SSD back in 2017.


My research so far, it seems like this SSD should work OOB PNP on my Asus X58 board..
And I can still use AHCI mode on the Intel Sata 3GBS ports, anyone can perhaps confirm this.. ?

I have seen videos posted here and it looks like the user was using IDE mode in his sata channels, instead of AHCI mode.
I dont use RAID btw.

Looking forward to an answer, thanks in advance,

Could I use this exact same method but instead of using an NVME I just install a uefi/efi version of windows to my hard drive. Basically same but no nvme.

Zitat von noInk im Beitrag #803

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@vasyosuol_24

I've sort of dirty quick fixed the GenBootSector utility again. Data sector division has been set static to FAT32 cluster count value.
If you re-download and unpack within the DUET_EDK2015_REFIND directory this archive the following command from an Admin command prompt should now work correctly on any updated windows version with unavailable FAT16 (or less) support.

1
2
3
 

ReadBoot Drive_Letter: SECTOR
 
 

Locate the new DBR and MBR files and attach\post or PM the files.


(20-06-2020)
UTILITY: Adjusted the cluster count to FAT32 value.

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