I've got an Acer Aspire 7 A715-71G-50WU, and I recently installed a Crucial PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSD (1TB). My specs are 16GB RAM, Intel Core i5-7300HQ, and a GTX 1050 GPU. I've updated my BIOS to the latest version (1.21). The main issue I'm facing is that the new NVMe SSD isn't appearing in the BIOS UEFI Boot Order even though it shows up on the BIOS main page and in the Legacy Boot order. I want to boot Windows 10 from the NVMe SSD instead of the original HDD, but it's not working in UEFI mode.
To provide some additional context:
- I can install Windows 10 on the NVMe through USB, but it's a fresh install since I can't clone due to sector size incompatibility (my HDD is 512 bytes, while the NVMe is 4096 bytes).
- I made sure to install Windows 10 with only the NVMe connected.
- Both drives are partitioned in GPT.
I'm really stuck on what the next steps are! The NVMe works fine as a storage device in Windows but just doesn't seem to want to show up for booting in UEFI.
2 Answers
Have you checked if you can boot from the NVMe drive after the installation? Sometimes the BIOS will display it as "Windows Boot Manager" instead of the drive name itself. It might just be a display issue.
Thanks for the tip! I remember it just says 'No Bootable Devices' when I remove the USB and main HDD. So, even with a successful Windows install, the NVMe doesn't show up as a UEFI boot option. It’s strange because it shows in the Legacy Boot list and is recognized in BIOS.
Make sure you're installing Windows with the NVMe drive alone connected. It sounds like you did that, but just double-checking! Also, since both drives are GPT, that's good. Just ensure that you access the BIOS settings and turn on any options related to NVMe or UEFI boot mode.
Sometimes, a BIOS update can resolve these types of issues, so ensure you're on the latest version when troubleshooting.
I did install with only the NVMe connected, but I’ll check the BIOS settings again for any relevant NVMe options. It might help!
Could it be that the USB drive you're using to install Windows is in MBR format? That might explain why the UEFI BIOS isn't recognizing the GPT NVMe. Might be worth looking into.