Hi. @Fernando @Lost_N_BIOS

unfortunately the response is the same... :(


trying from the mainboard built-in flash utility.. it return a security check fail.


EDIT by Fernando: Unneeded fully quoted post removed (to save space within this thread)

Fernando,
I have a Sony Vaio Pro with a M.2 AHCI ssd (sm951) and have modified my bios adding nvme support with your forums help.
I have been unable to flash it with the suggested utilities so I have acquired some new bios chips and successfully flashed the modified bios to one.
I have now acquired a hot air station to solder the new chip to the motherboard and will be doing this shortly.
Assuming it works I have one question I haven't found the answer to after searching this forum:

Will I be still be able to boot to the old ssd (SM951) with this modified bios without flashing back to the non modified BIOS?

Also, I have cloned my current ssd to my new nvme ssd (Samsung 970) using a USB adapter, will I be able to just install the new ssd and boot right to it?

Thank you for this awesome forum and all who contribute to it!!

Stratolifter

Can anyone supply a working link to download NvmExpressDxe_4.ffs ?

All the ones I try download an 11kb rar file that 7zip says is invalid.

Thanks

@ra_pepperuk - update your WinRAR/7zip version (See note attached to download section on page one >>> You have to use WinRAR v5.xx or 7-Zip v18xx to be able to unzip the offered RAR archives!)

Thanks - I did miss that.

Many thanks to Fernando and this great forum. I have successfully modded my MSI 970A-G46 motherboard for NVMe boot support. Here is brief list of what I did, hope it may helpful to others.

1. Download MSI 970a-g46 latest bios v2.8: E7693V28.exe. To get the rom file from this exe file, copy the exe file to a USB drive and run it in windows 10. During the installation process, there will be folder created on the USB dirve named 3EDC4RFV. Copy the E7693AMS.280 rom file from that folder to another location, and cancel the installation.

2. Download the mod file NvmExpressDxe_4.ffs for NVMe support.

3. Download the bios mod program MMTool 4.50.0.23.

4. Start MMTool.exe,
Click "Load Image" and find the E7693AMS.280 file. In the lower window, find the string "CSMCORE", and click on it.
In the "Insert" tab, click "Browse" and find the NvmExpressDxe_4.ffs file, click "Insert" button.
Click "Save Image as", and choose a file name for the modded bios, eg: msi.rom

5. Google and download program AFUWIN64, my download is ver 3.07.01. Start the program, and click "open" and choose the modded bios file, msi.rom. Then click "Flash", and wait it to finish. It took about 5 minutes.

6. Now, the NVMe ssd should be bootable and run windows 10 like other sata ssds. I didn't change any settings in the bios after the mod.

7. For my other motherboards, ASUS M5A97 LE, the above method doesn't work. After the mod, windows installation has no problem (windows doesn't want to install on the NVMe ssd before the mod), but the NVMe is still not bootable. I used the Clover-EFI bootloader method later.

Fernando, thanks for your reply. I think you are right. I am not sure the step of bios flash is successful or not. Maybe not, since the flashing time is too fast, about 1-2 mins. So maybe only part of the rom is flashed. I used the AFUDOS version with /GAN option for the flash, since I got secure check error with other options. I will try external programmer later if I get a chance.

I did play with the BIOS settings on the Asus M5A97 LE motherboard. I disabled both "Secure Boot" and "Fast Boot". I changed the CMS setting to all kinds of options, but no luck.

Hi Forum,

Maybe someone can help to track down a boot issue...
My NVMe-enabled system was set up according to the guide posted here by @Fernando and was running fine for months - until today.

The issue: I can no longer boot. I'm seeing two entries in my boot menu (1: PATA and the other 2: UEFI:NAME_OF_MY_SSD). Both entries are not bootable. The working entry I had before (Windows Boot Manager) is no longer there.

What did I do? I patched my existing NVMe-enabled BIOS with Intel's latest uCode using UBU tool. the patching process and the BIOS file itself looked fine to me so I went ahead and flashed it.

What could have lead to the issue? Is there anything specific to consider when updating and re-flashing an NVMe-modded BIOS in an otherwise running Windows 10 system?

Thanks a lot and best regards!
Christoph

EDIT: Attaching my current BIOS file...

Hi @Fernando and others,

I would like to point out only one thing. I was and still am sure that this BIOS mod method is kind of limited to some of BIOS including mine to boot only from a specifically path given in BIOS, like on my case just from Windows (if ssd0), and I will explain why. I tried almost everything to boot from different OS and other bootloaders, but always only windows booted. UNTIL I renamed other boot files from other OS and replaced windows boot files! (This renaming method is nice BUT it is valid until Windows has any update, it then recreates and so corrects the bootfiles again.)

I now searched in Hex Editor within my BIOS rom image, I have the following occurences, as I was quite sure there was no other way to explain this phenomena. And here we go what I found eg:

Boot0000�
���t�W�i�n�d�o�w�s� �B�o�o�t� �M�a�n�a�g�e�r���
*����� ������ �����ÉzZ=K»zeù{N¤ÁF�\�E�F�I�\�M�i�c�r�o�s�o�f�t�\�B�o�o�t�\�b�o�o�t�m�g�f�w�.�e�f�i���ÿ�WINDOWS�
���ˆ���x���B�C�D�O�B�J�E�C�T�=�{�9�d�e�a�8

there are 111 (!) occurences in the BIOS rom file pointing to \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi

this cannot be a coincidence. so just FYI.

Does anyone know whether I can safely replace this path&file name string in the hexeditor, and keep the string as same long as it is (in order to avoid size/delimiting problems)? I would like to point e.g. to a grub or refind bootloader file and adapt the folder naming string size accordingly.

Or any other suggestions?

Zitat von Fernando im Beitrag #4597

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I suspect, that only the boot sector, which is within the small EFI partition, got somehow corrupted. You can try to repair it by booting in UEFI mode off the Win10 installation medium and to choose the "Repair" option.

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