Hey folks! I'm in a bit of a jam and could really use your expertise. I recently upgraded my PC with a new motherboard, CPU, and RAM, aiming to install Windows on a Kingston Fury Renegade 1TB NVMe drive instead of my usual SATA SSD. Here's the situation:
My setup includes an ASUS B850 motherboard and the SSD is detected by the BIOS with no issues. I can install Windows on it just fine, but I never see the Windows Boot Manager show up in the BIOS. Only the USB installer is available as a boot option.
I've made sure to perform a fresh install with just the NVMe drive connected, updated the BIOS to the latest version, and set it up in UEFI mode with CSM disabled. I also have Secure Boot set to 'Other OS' and confirmed the disk is in GPT format. I've even rebuilt the EFI partition and everything seems to check out, yet I still can't get a UEFI boot entry to show up.
I'm wondering:
- Has anyone experienced issues with ASUS boards not recognizing NVMe drives for UEFI booting?
- Are there any known issues between the ASUS B850 and the Kingston Fury Renegade SSD?
- Is there a specific BIOS option I might be missing that could help create the UEFI boot entry?
At this point, I'm even considering getting a different SSD just to troubleshoot, but I'd love to figure out what's going wrong. Thanks for any help you can offer!
4 Answers
Before you dive into anything drastic, double-check that the NVMe drive is formatted correctly with GPT and that the EFI partition is set up properly. Sometimes issues come from not having the right file system structure. Disk Manager can help with formatting if needed!
It's worth mentioning that some ASUS boards have quirks regarding UEFI boot entries. If you keep encountering obstacles, testing with another SSD could be worthwhile, just to rule out any compatibility issues. Sometimes even if it’s detected, certain drives just don’t play nice with specific motherboards.
It sounds like you might need to change your Secure Boot setting to 'Windows OS' instead of 'Other OS'. I’ve seen some ASUS motherboards have trouble finding the right EFI boot command for Windows. You could also try installing Ubuntu temporarily to see if that boots correctly. If it does, you can install Windows afterwards and it should use the correct EFI path.
I tried installing Ubuntu, but I still can't boot from the SSD after restarting. This is so frustrating!
Just a heads up, make sure CSM is disabled and that you've set your BIOS to UEFI mode. It’s a crucial step that I missed once. Also, if you're comfortable, you might wanna consider resetting your BIOS to defaults and then reapply these settings.
The drive should already be in the right format (GPT + FAT32 for EFI + NTFS for OS), but I’ll make sure to verify everything again.