Thanks for clarification again, so I've misunderstood the whole time, up until just now! So you cannot boot to windows, no matter what, even in legacy mode with other SATA devices disconnected or dropped due to lost, even with chainloader method?

I assume noInk will be able to tell you what to do next. With NVME Mod done, BIOS A/B he made, you need to install a certain way exactly, or it will fail similar to above, this does not involve any grub or chainloading etc.
Please see this guide and follow all steps exactly in the "What should I do" section at step #4 - [Guide] How to get full NVMe support for all Systems with an AMI UEFI BIOS
That can be done in UEFI Mode with GPT partitioned source disk (ie put windows install source onto a GPT Partition on USB), install to RAW disk or pre-partitioned GPT disk
Or, in legacy mode with Windows install files on a MBR partition USB, install to MBR Partitioned disk

@Lost_N_BIOS
Ah... not quite misunderstood. :)
Here is the summary:

                                                         Legacy mode         UEFI mode
No other fixed disk drives connected to SATA ports      Chainload only      Not booting
Any other fixed disk drives connected to SATA ports      Not booting        Not booting
 

I saw you have told somebody else to follow those steps exactly in previous threads, also you and @noInk both emphasized again in this thread, so I've double checked to ensure not missing any of them when I was testing noInk's files last time. :)

@simhfc

Try to flash this file.
The Marvell mSATA option ROM you linked on your previous post is embedded.
Might not boot, no real way to test on mine side, if so, restore your working backup.
Lemme know, but, that's it.

@Lost_N_BIOS
With the NVME DXE (A and B) bioses all he need to do is attach a NVME physical module somewhere to get it working.
Windows 10 will provide the software (driver) and accomplish everything needed to make it bootable.
On the mSATA drive, dunno, he might need to provide the compatible F4 driver manually.
Point is; I m quite sure the Lenovo SSD on the first page is just another mSATA device.

@noInk
Thank you for the modded ROM file~
Tested by following those steps strictly with fresh Windows setup, the same thing happened again, not booting...

You are correct about the SSD interface, I checked both reports from HWiNFO64 and AIDA64, it says "Drive Controller: Serial ATA 6Gb/s @ 6Gb/s" in HWiNFO64 and "Device Type SATA-III" in AIDA64, the Marvell 88SE9170 acts as a SATA controller on PCIe lane, so the SSD would get recognized by PCIe interface.

Another proposal, Is it possible to make the 9170 SATA controller co-exist with the onboard SATA controller? It seems if the onboard one is active, it replaces 9170 in booting, I'd prefer an easier way since either one would be enough for me. Thank you!

@simhfc

Nope, without the board and the time I would not able to.
For NVME support use either A or B on spare parts.
About the mSATA you can try other compatible/updated Marvell ROM by manually editing the binary @ offset 20000 and flashing the whole back to the MXIC MX 25L4006E M2I-12G.
Remember to use either A B or C or your deafult BIOS, the last image A_MRV "*overwrite*" (technically it just write it first) in the memory the ROM present within the Lenovo PCB.
GL!

@noInk
Thank you noInk for modding files & tips! I saw the codes start from that offset.

@noInk @IntelModder @Lost_N_BIOS

Today I've just known that Marvell has firmware files regarding 2 modes(BIOS and UEFI) for their controllers including 9170, the one that I've dumped is a BIOS one, same as this one, and I've requested UEFI firmware for testing.

Before testing the coming firmware, I'd like to practice UEFITOOL v0.21.5 as IntelModder discussed, there is only one GUID entry in the .BIO file which is expandable, when I extracted it and try to "transplant" it into my dumped file, I found it's over-sized(file size in .BIO is 706505, same GUID file in dumped file is 671531), by comparing the file modded by noInk, I see one module within the compressed section has been removed, which I did not succeed even by a simple searching around the forum. :p

So, would you mind sharing the experience on how to successfully reduce the size and "transplant" that compressed section with UEFITOOL v0.21.5? Thanks~

@simhfc

This is going a bit beyond where i got to on my motherboard. In my case i was able to transplant directly the compressed volume into my dumped rom (my bios chip was 8MB and had enough room for it).

In your case, the compressed volume can't be directly transplanted because its uncompressed total size is greater than the total size of the dumped rom. If you're hardware oriented, you could replace the bios chip with something larger and rebuild your bios. But that's getting a bit out there and doesn't really solve your problem.

Attached to this post you can find an example rom i knocked up by transplanting the compressed volume using uefitool 0.21.5 and a hex editor. I was unable to modify the transplanted volume by adding an NVME module the way that @noInk did (this one needs opened in uefitool 0.21.5).

I've also included two different ways of incorporating an NVME module into the volume for you to look at. In the first one the uncompressed volume with the DXEs is expanded (2808kb) by writing the NVME module at the end of the file with a hex editor and changing the volume size, block map size, and checksum in the vol header.

In the second (2788kb - same size as the original), i've removed two DXEs with uefitool, saved, then opened mmtool 4.50.0.23 and added back those two removed DXEs with the option 'compressed' checked. I've then added the NVME module to the volume with mmtool (these two files can be opened in any uefitool version).

As long as you have a hardware programmer, you can get creative with what you do. Anything beyond this is beyond my abilities.

Good luck!

@IntelModder

Thank you IntelModder for the detailed sharing, I'll get some practice soon, have a great weekend!

@simhfc
The very problem is the bios you dumped isn't the full bios which couldn't be flash by the programmer.I think you could dumped it by pin-mod or programmer.

this is an old topic but i have bought d2700mud for a small project but intel dropped support for the board and does not allow to download bios files anymore. Anybody have the latest original bios file?