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Help! OptiPlex with M.2 SSD drive will not boot post image!

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Hey guys, please help, I'm sure this is an easy fix.  I have a Dell OptiPlex 7050 master image, thing is that the system that I used to capture the master image used a normal SATA drive, NOW Dell is shipping me OptiPlex 7050's with M.2 drives.

I am using Win PE boot image from PXE in UEFI mode which is allowing me to deploy the image without error or incident to the system, but these new OptiPlexes with M.2 drives will not boot into windows, giving me "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE".  So, do I just need to change the BOOT.INI options or something post deploy of the image?

The picture I've attached shows the Device Information of the Master Image system where you can see that the flash drive on that system was SATA-4, these new systems have the drive in the row beneath, labeled M.2 PCIe SSD-0

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opti7050_master.png 1.44 MB
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Probably talking to myself in this thread, but I am really struggling.  This should be an easy fix, I've of course come to find out about the new BCD model used with UEFI drives and what a F%^$ pain in the rump that is!  Since the system isn't booting from the drive, there is no installation media present and therefore I can't do a repair.  So... I have to boot from installation media to get the Repair option.  Well, first I was trying to boot Legacy mode from USB media and with that method I was able to see the NVME drive and it's volumes but unable to make any changes to it, so the bcdedit and bcdboot type commands were failing.  Then I figured out how to build a GPT UEFI bootable USB media, booted from it in UEFI mode and it doesn't even see the drive.  Where I am at now is I boot from the UEFI USB drive, BUT I am in Legacy mode and now I am able to modify files on the drive, bcd commands are working but I am still unable to get it to boot from the NVME drive, even to Safe mode.

Messing around with a purchased tool called EasyRE by NeoSmart Technologies which is supposed to easily correct these boot time problems, even UEFI with Windows 10, but so far it's been a dud. 

I can't get Acronis to call me, apparently my Snap Deploy maintenance has expired, I requested renewal of that Monday, still nothing.

I would try applying Universal Restore booted from WinPE in UEFI mode to the restired system and injecting the M.2 drivers. You also need to know if the new Dell has the SATA mode set to RAID. This has been the case with the new models even though there is only one M.2 drive in the system. It's being done to increase the performance of the M.2 drive. If that is the case, you could try changing the SATA mode to AHCI to see if that makes the restored image boot.

I see the same "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" error when I restore an M.2 drive to a SATA SSD or HDD. I know this is the oposite of what you are doing, but it involves the same principal. Injecting the SATA controller driver into the restored system made it bootable. It was a very surprising result because the Windows 10 system already supported the SATA controller before it was imaged. In my case the SATA mode was set to AHCI both before and after the restore. It probably worked for me because Universal Restore made more changes than just injecting the SATA controller driver.

I had a similar issue when imaging SATA HDDs with M.2 SSDs on a Dell Optiplex 3050.

I think it is a Win 10 driver issue.

My solution was to wipe the M.2 SSD drive and install it into the Optiplex 3050.

Boot up with the SATA HDD. Windows 10 automatically installed the M.2 driver.

Re-image the SATA HDD to the M.2 SSD with the updated driver.

Remove the SATA HDD.

Then I could boot the M.2 SSD without the "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" error.

 

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Hello GrennVomit8,

tank you for sharing your experience with the other users!