TI 2016 Dell XPS 13 9350 Win 10 fails
Dell XPS 13 Windows 10
True Image 2016 build 6027
Varoius methods attempted but fails to see PCIE drive
secure boot on, secure boot off, UEFI on and off, legacy, ahci, Nothing is working to see, manage or clone the drive.
The issue is a lack of drivers in the default Linux based Recovery Media. You would need to create a WinPE Recovery media which will contain the appropriate Windows drivers that support PCIe drives.
Hi Enchantech,
When I run the WinPE-based media with Acronis plug-in from the Acronis Rescue Media Builder it fails to find any hard drives as well.
Do I need to run some other form of WinPE?
Thanks!
You need to have the Windows 10 ADK installed to get the latest driver support when you build tjhe WinPE https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/dn913721.aspx . Uninstall the Windows 8 ADK first.
Hi, I'm Daniel from Switzerland and new in this forum :-)
I have exactly the same problem on a Dell XPS 13 with 1TB SSD PCIe with ACRONIS 2016 Build 6027.
I created a USB Boot Medium as described (WinPE: ADK for Win10 from your link & Acronis Add-on) on the XPS 13 itself.
But no way to see any partition where I could make a restore.
Do I need to add the PCIe driver somehow to the WinPE?
Thanks you for any support.
Beste Grüsse
Daniel
The windows 10 ADK should already have the necessary generic PCIE NVME drivers for the Samsung Pro 950's and anythig similar. However, in some cases, you may need to manually add drivers if they are still not being detected - I'm not sure what kind of pcie disk this system actually has installed in it.
If you're not familiar with modifying WinPE .wim files manually with ADK, you can try out DISMgui (it was mentioned in other posts here in Acronis and I have tested it and it works nicely and may be easier for some). Basically, you run it "as administrator", point it to the boot.wim in your PEmedia (needs to be on a USB as you won't be able to modify the .wim on your .iso). Tell it where to mount the .wim. Once mounted, their is a driver tab. Point it to the pciedrive drives (must be .inf version), let it add them, then go back adn dismount the .wim and you should be good to go.
Othwerwise, here are manual instructions from Microsoft. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn613857.aspx
hi,
O.K. how can I find the nessesary driver? I can't find a driver in the DeviceManager that looks like a PCIe driver.
Any Idea?
P.S. The Disk is named as : NVMe PM 951 SAMSU (Device Manager)
Thanks Daniel
It should be on the manufactuer webpage. Unfortunatley the PM951 is an OEM specific hard drive so it's not listed as a download from Samsung. Check Dell and see if you can find it directly on there - there are at least 12 different versions of the XPS13, so not sure which one would be for your model.
EDIT: Here is another Dell forum post with informatoin suggesting to download the intel controller driver as well:
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19662843
If not, you can use "Double Driver" which is a very easy to use third party utility that scans your system for installed drivers and can extract all of them, or just specific ones that you choose. If you use "Double Driver" you don't need all of the drivers and I'd recommend not doing that - I'd just grab the hard drive driver and inject it and see how it goes.
This is third party site for downloading Double Driver - Major Geeks is pretty trustorthy, but there are lots of additional "click here" buttons trying to get you do click elsewhere, so be careful if you do grab it from there. This should be a direct download to the file (scan with AV just in case). http://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/getmirror/double_driver,1.html
Thanks for the information. But I still do not know witch driver I have to use.
Look at this two pictures (Devie Manager & Dell Driver Download): http://emmebikeguide.jimdo.com/english/
1.) Device Manager: The SSD Driver is very old (2006) and from Microsoft.
2.) Dell Drivers: Is there an SSD driver?
P.S.
The XPS13 9350 has this ServiceTag:FRZZD72
Gruss Daniel
Daniel,
I don't see a spefiic hard drive driver for your system on Dell's website either. You can get the generic intel PCIE NVME drivers directly from Intel. Hope that helps...
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/23929/Intel-Solid-State-Drive…
Alternatively, please see my previous post for the download for double driver. It will scan your system for all drivers and then you can look for the specific driver for your hard drive and save it off so that you can then add it to your WinPE that way.
Also, you did not mention, but what version of the Windows ADK did you isntall and use to create the WinPE? If you did not use the Windows 10 ADK, please remove your current ADK, and reinstall the Windows 10 ADK and build your PE with that as it has native support for NVME PCIE hard drives already built into it. My signature block has links for the different Windows 10 ADK downloads.
Here is a link to Intel drivers as well as Samsung specific drivers. You will need to extract the ,inf files from these packages using a tool like 7zip.
Be advised that the Intel driver is IaNVMe.inf. The Samsung driver is nvme.inf. You can use either one.
http://www.win-raid.com/t29f25-Recommended-AHCI-RAID-and-NVMe-Drivers.h…
I could not find the Dell version, but I did find some from HP and here is the version from Intel... One of these has got to work.
Intel: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/23929/Intel-Solid-State-Drive…
HP: http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=wk_149537_1
Thank you for all the feedback. I tried to add your driver at the commandline and the GUI, but with no positive result. See Commands at the bottom:
An other Idea: Would somebody share the boot.wim or an ISO (WinPE-Acronis that runs withe de XPS13 Dell) with me.
Or has someone an othe idea?
Thanks for your help
Daniel
C:\Windows\system32>Dism /Mount-Wim /WimFile:"F:\sources\boot.wim" /index:1 /MountDir:"D:\temp" Tool zur Abbildverwaltung für die Bereitstellung Version: 6.1.7600.16385 Abbild wird bereitgestellt [==========================100.0%==========================] Der Vorgang wurde erfolgreich beendet. C:\Windows\system32>Dism /Add-Driver /Image:"D:\temp" /Driver:"F:\_temp\driver\nvme.inf" Tool zur Abbildverwaltung für die Bereitstellung Version: 6.1.7600.16385 Fehler: 0xc0000135 Fehler beim Starten des Wartungsprozesses für das Abbild unter "D:\temp". Weitere Informationen finden Sie in der Protokolldatei. Die DISM-Protokolldatei befindet sich unter "C:\Windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log". C:\Windows\system32>Dism /Add-Driver /Image:"D:\temp" /Driver:"F:\_temp\Driver\I aNVMe.inf" Tool zur Abbildverwaltung für die Bereitstellung Version: 6.1.7600.16385 Fehler: 0xc0000135 Fehler beim Starten des Wartungsprozesses für das Abbild unter "D:\temp". Weitere Informationen finden Sie in der Protokolldatei. Die DISM-Protokolldatei befindet sich unter "C:\Windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log". C:\Windows\system32>
Daniel,
I will forward this to Acronis technical support and I do hope they get back to you soon. I've been an advocate that the WinPE should be made more easily available as well.
In the meantime I tried it with a regular WinPE as described in www.ct.de/y4nq with the same effect (SSD not visable). In the booted WinPE (Win10) I started the Device Manager and added all drivers (previusly backupeb with Double Driver). The SSD is still not visable.
In an other Forumg I got the tip to change the Dell XPS13 BIOS Stetting as follows:
System Configuration, SATA Operation: from 'Raid On' to 'Disable'
In this mode you can boot with Acronis WinPE and YOU WILL SEE the SSD (without to add any driver manualy). A restore should now be possible. After the Restore you MUST change the origin BIOS settings. Otherwise the System will not boot again.
Gruss Daniel
daniel krebs,
Thanks for the post above. Can you describe or tell us what sort of drive arrangement your XPS13 has? I am amazed that this fact did not surface earlier in this thread. Had the fact that these systems use RAID been known this would have been solved much sooner!
daniel krebs,
Thanks for the post above. Can you describe or tell us what sort of drive arrangement your XPS13 has? I am amazed that this fact did not surface earlier in this thread. Had the fact that these systems use RAID been known this would have been solved much sooner!
Most definitely! Glad that Daniel found a work-a-round though. However, the true fix would be to include the storage controller (RAID) driver in the WinPE as well and I have a feeling the Intel chipset driver (not just the NIC) as well. Remember, WinPE is just that... it's Windows Preboot Environment - if Windows doesn't have the correct drivers, it won't be able to utilize the local hardware and, as a result, neither will any embedded applications (Acronis in this case).
Daniel, it sounds like you're fairly familiar with the driver injection process in WinPE now, so give it a shot if you have still have the time or desire to verify. Otherwise, at least the work-a-round seems to be functional for the purposes of backup and restore.
Sorry, a few more thoughts when you do the driver injection using DISM commands:
1) Just to be sure, you're running the ADK with "run as administrator" privileges?
2) instead of using "Temp" as your extracted destination... try creating a new folder directly on the root of your C: drive first with another name. Then make sure to give "all users" full access to that folder before attempting to mount the image there.
3) Just like my recommendation in #2, copy your WIM to the root of your C: drive and also make sure "all users" have full access to it.
4) After #3, open another elevated admin command prompt (keep the ADK window open though) and navigate to where the file WIM file was placed (C:\, if you put it on the root of your drive. Then type the following command (if your WIM is named something other than boot.wim, change that in the command).
attrib -h -s boot.wim
5) Finally, when you are at the point of injecting your driver, use the "/ForceUnsigned" switch - just in case (which it doesn't look like you did previously, and it never hurts as long as you know you're using a driver from a legitimate source).
Add and Remove Drivers to an Offline Windows Image
Multiple drivers can be added on one command line if you specify a folder instead of an .inf file. To install all of the drivers in a folder and all its subfolders use the /recurse option.
Example
Dism /Image:C:\test\offline /Add-Driver /Driver:c:\drivers /Recurse
To install an unsigned driver, use /ForceUnsigned to override the requirement that drivers installed on X64-based computers must have a digital signature.
Example
Dism /Image:C:\test\offline /Add-Driver /Driver:C:\drivers\mydriver.inf /ForceUnsigned
I might add that had a look at the Dell site for the XPS 13 and could not find an available option for a 1TB PCIe SSD. This RAID thing I am having a hard time with though, can any one owning one of these things confirm drive arrangement? Number of drives installed? Any additional information on this would be appreciated!
Hi Enchantech,
Don't know if this helps..
From my new DELL XPS 13 9350 BIOS (original factory configuration):
--Intel Rapid Storage Technology tab--
Intel(R) RST 14.7.0.2341 RAID Driver
Non-RAID Physical Disks:
>PCIe 1.0, PM951 NVMe SAMSUNG 512GB *SERIAL*, 476.9GB
PHYSICAL DISK INFO
Port: 1.0
Model number: PM951 NVMe Samsung 512GB
Size: 476.9GB
Status: Non-RAID
Controller type: NVMe
Controller interface: PCIe
I'm unable to get the Acronis TI 2016 boot media (std or WinPE) to detect this ssd. I have not tried to inject drivers into WinPE. If so, I suppose the Intel RST RAID driver would have to go in?
That's the one I'd recommend. If that does not work on it's own, I wouldn't normally recommend injecting all of your OS drivers, but in this case, since the XPS drivers have been such an issue and just to try, I would use DoubleDriver and let it scan your system with the settting for all non-Windows Drivers. Then save just the non-Windows Drivers to a single folder. Then use Windows ADK commands to inject all drivers in that folder using the /Recurse and /ForceUnsigned switches to make sure they all get loaded up, commit the changes and try the WinPE again.
Add and Remove Drivers to an Offline Windows Image
Multiple drivers can be added on one command line if you specify a folder instead of an .inf file. To install all of the drivers in a folder and all its subfolders use the /recurse option. For example,
Dism /Image:C:\test\offline /Add-Driver /Driver:c:\drivers /Recurse
To install an unsigned driver, use /ForceUnsigned to override the requirement that drivers installed on X64-based computers must have a digital signature. For example,
Dism /Image:C:\test\offline /Add-Driver /Driver:C:\drivers\mydriver.inf /ForceUnsigned
Did you see the post above though? http://forum.acronis.com/forum/109628#comment-332892
"System Configuration, SATA Operation: from 'Raid On' to 'Disable'
In this mode you can boot with Acronis WinPE and YOU WILL SEE the SSD (without to add any driver manualy). A restore should now be possible. After the Restore you MUST change the origin BIOS settings. Otherwise the System will not boot again.
Gruss Daniel"
Ok, yes it does help and thank you. Looks to me like Dell is using the Intel RST Raid driver in non raid mode. This makes sense because the PCIe interface used is probably an SATA PCIe Express slot. That means the drive is leveraged against the on board SATA controller and not against the CPU directly through an X4 PCIe lane. (Note the PCIe 1.0 designation in the description.)
You will get some decent performance out of this arrangement, I would say Sequential read/write at 32Q depth of around 800+MBps.
Anyone having trouble with these model Dells should take the hint from Daniel Krebs above and disable RAID in your bios if you need to restore an image to the M.2 drive. I am guessing here that in RAID mode the M.2 drive disappears because it is tied to the same Controller internally in the machine. Having the RAID enabled must perform some driver optimization for the drive to allow performance above the 600MBps limit of the SATA interface. Interesting!
Now, would someone care to benchmark one of these things with say Crystal Disk?
daniel krebs, here is a link to a boot.wim file that has the Intel SATA RST 14.5.2.1088 drivers injected. I will leave it in dropbox for a limited time. Please let me know when you have been able to download.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gv0jwf56ekmnb0v/AAAPopbIDiU3J19K6Z76t3iUa?dl=0
I used the Acronis Rescue Media Builder, chose "WinPE-based media with Acronis plug-in" and created a bootable usb drive. I then copied the boot.wim file from the usb, and injected the DELL 9350_Serial-ATA_Driver_WV03M_WN32_14.5.2.1088_A00.EXE drivers using the DISMgui tool that Bobbo_3C0X1 kindly referred to in an earlier post. Then I replaced the original boot.wim file in the "sources" folder on the usb drive with the modified one. That's it. Acronis should be able to "see" the PM951 ssd.
Enchantech, here is the CrystalDiskMark output from my xps 9350;
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 5.1.2 x64 (C) 2007-2016 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]
* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes
Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1681.091 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 592.960 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 358.564 MB/s [ 87540.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 469.160 MB/s [114541.0 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 1059.050 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 593.296 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 43.323 MB/s [ 10576.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 166.636 MB/s [ 40682.6 IOPS]
Test : 1024 MiB [C: 7.1% (33.1/463.8 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]
Date : 2016/03/23 0:05:36
OS : Windows 10 Professional [10.0 Build 10586] (x64)
In your opinion, what kind of performance setback can I expect if I choose one of the other SATA operation options; "Disabled" or "AHCI" instead of "RAID On"?
Unless you're actually using RAID with multiple drives, in most cases, AHCI is the recommeded setting, especially for Samsung SSD's (it says so in the Samsung Magician software as well). You should technically see a slight improvement using AHCI (probably not in real world performance though).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB1hgCAp6c8 has a quick comparison
If the system BSOD's after disabling RAID on for AHCI, switch it back to RAID on, then run this microsoft tool, power off and switch to AHCI then.
922976 - Microsoft Support
dash-pilot,
Your numbers are very good. Keep in mind that the bencmark is a synthectic test and will not reflect real world results.
In changing from Raid to AHCI mode you can experiment. I think you will find that some numbers improve while others degrade. In Raid mode your writes should be better than AHCI. In AHCI mode your reads should be better. This is just a general rule of thumb however and may not prove out on your system.
I have been testing M.2 drives with several benchmark tools and I am of the opinion at this point that the numbers they produce cannot be trusted. If you use another benchmark tool such as ATTO for example you will get a different set of numbers than you do with CrystalDisk. Some of that is attributable to difference in the test configurations themselves however, I have seen wide variations between benchmarks, much more than would be expected so I do not think the current tools are showing even close to accurate results.
Hopefully someone will produce a new tool that can more accurately measure these devices that leverage the PCIe interface. By your numbers I think your drive is using an X4 PCIe lane but I have no proof of that and like I say I really do not trust the numbers.
Thanks for the feedback! I did contact Dell Pro-Support about this, and here's what they said when I challenged their practice of delivering systems with RAID on;
"In short, 'RAID on' in the XPS 9350 is a hybrid between AHCI and RAID. 'RAID on' have the the same functionality and approximately the same speed as AHCI, and in addition an improved harddisk technology (e.g. 'Rapid Start' and support for NVMe disks)."
So I guess I'll leave 'RAID on', --now that have a functional WinPE/Acronis bootdisk it's not such an issue for me:) Hopefully Acronis will deliver support for this kind of setup out-of-the-box in the near future...
Thanks for sharing what Dell told you. I might have a deeper look. There have been a lot of requests for support for these PCIe drives, I would think that will happen soon.
If you want to try another Benchmark tool that I think comes closer than anything else I have tried at believable numbers you should try Anvil.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/anvils-storage-utilities-download.h…
I just bought a Dell XPS 15 with high res monitor and PCIe Gen3 x4 SSD (Samsung I think makes it). Anyway, created an image file as I've always done using previous Acronis products (True Image Home) and created a rescue boot drive using a Cruzer 2GB USB Flash drive.
The boot media seemed to boot up ok, followed the prompts, found the image file I created on the external WD USB drive etc but when it came to selecting the destination drive nothing came up. Just greyed out with no other option to overwrite, nothing. So at this point I have a nice image file but nowhere to restore to as the boot media for some reason either can't or has issue with SSDs.
Anthony,
The default boot media being Linux based lacks driver support for the new PCIe drives. Therefore it is necessary to create WinPE based boot media so that the necessary drivers are available.
Anthony, Enchantech is correct. Use WinPE for now - it's very useful in its own right anyway.
However, an expected update to ATIH 2016 should be coming this month (hopefully it stays on track for release), but Gaidar, Acronis General Manager, has posted in other of the Acronis user forums that he expects it to be available this month. It does look like these newer PCIE NVME drives will have the necessary drivers in the default Linux bootable media, but we won't know for sure until it's released, but I'm almost positive it will.
Hi
Thanks very much for this image. I was despairing of being able to take an image of my new XPS13 before using it for the first time. Your image and steps worked a treat. Hopefully Acronis will update True Image to include these drivers sooner rather than later.
Regards Ken
Hi Ken, I believe the latest versions of ATIH will work now too (default Linux version). As of build v6559 - 6571, NVME PCIE hard drives are now supported, along with newer Nics too. The only systems that may sitll have trouble (that I'm aware of) are those with unique RAID controllers. In those cases (at least for now), WinPE would still be the way to go.
If possible, you can try creating a USB bootable recovery flash drive using the default Acronis rescue media builder if you have v6559 or newer and see if it detects your drive. If it does, it should work just fine for imaging and recovery.
Hi - thanks for the reply.
I purchase the XPS13 June 13. I tried my ATIH 2015 and encountered the problem. After reading around, I updated to ATIH 2016 5 days ago which updated during installation even after Judy downloading (what's that all about?) I tried both the default Linux and WinPE boot USB's without success. So while the problem is likely the RAID as you suggest, it's not solved by the most current version of ATIH.
RAID controllers are always unique - if the hard drive isn't being picked up in either the linux version or winPE, you'll need to inject the drivers using Windows ADK dism commands.
Also, you didn't say what version of the Windows ADK you built your WinPE with? Did you use Windows 10 ADK, or an earlier version. Wthe Windows 10ADK may be all you need as it has really good driver support right out of the box. If you used ADK 5.0 (Win 8.1 - Win 7) or earlier, then you want to use the Windows 10 ADK. You can install it and use it on Win 7 and newer.
(6.) Microsoft ADK for WinPE 10 (6.0)
RAID controllers are always unique - if the hard drive isn't being picked up in either the linux version or winPE, you'll need to inject the drivers using Windows ADK dism commands.
Also, you didn't say what version of the Windows ADK you built your WinPE with? Did you use Windows 10 ADK, or an earlier version. Wthe Windows 10ADK may be all you need as it has really good driver support right out of the box. If you used ADK 5.0 (Win 8.1 - Win 7) or earlier, then you want to use the Windows 10 ADK. You can install it and use it on Win 7 and newer.
(6.) Microsoft ADK for WinPE 10 (6.0)