WinPE Acronis Boot Disk Won't See NVME Drives
I have a Gigabyte Aorus x399 motherboard with ThreadRipper 1950x CPU. My issue is I cannot see the NVME drives as an option to restore a back-up (when using a WinPE Acronis Boot Disk.) However, if I boot with the Linux-based Acronis TrueImage 2019 boot media, it see's the NVME drives without any issue. There are no NVME drivers on the motherboard manufacturers website. Only RAID and SATA drivers (I've added both to the WinPE Acronis Boot Media, and it still doesn't see the NVME drives, while the Linux-bootable Acronis media works fine.)
Through experimentation (and a huge time investment) I've discovered if I create the WinPE Acronis boot disk (simple option) from this PC, it will boot and recognize the NVMe drives, but not my RAID array. If I add the RAID drivers using the ADVANCED option, it see's the RAID but NOT the NVMe.
What am I missing?
Thanks!
You will need to add driver support for your RAID storage controller. This is easiest done with the MVP ATI Media builder tool found on the right side of this page under MVP User Tools and Tutorials.
Please tell us more about your RAID array specs.
I am using the RAID drivers available here:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X399-AORUS-Gaming-7-rev-10#support…
However, I can see the RAID just fine. What I cannot see is the NVME drives from any Acronis WinPE boot media made on any other PC. I have to use the Linux boot media or I have to create the media on the x399 PC with the Acronis software installed. It's very strange.
What OS are you running? If you create the Simple build of the Acronis Recovery Media builder what you get is a WinRE which is supposed to offer the best compatibility to the machine on which the media is built. This is true because it uses the Windows Recovery Environment resident on the machine from which the media is built.
If you choose the Advanced method of build this uses an installed Windows ADK and produces a WinPE environment that is more of a universal boot environment.
If you select to build a Linux based Recovery Media then is will have the least amount of driver support for your machine.
Windows 10 based WinPE offers NVMe support so it should detect and show them using a WinRE or WinPE media you can see the NVMe drive(s). What is missing is native support for your RAID controller. To solve this you would need to add the NVMe drivers into the build process of the WinPE/RE media. While performing the build you can add these drivers. There is a tutorial available that explains how to do this. It is an advanced exercise but produces good results.
There is also the MVP tool I mentioned earlier, simpler to add drivers with it and good results as well.
What NVMe drives are you using?
It's easy. Use the MVP ATI Media builder tool. Put the RAID driver in the Drivers_Custom\x64 folder. You should probably remove the IRST folder at this time. Run the tool and select the Build from WinRE option. This will use the same WinRE the Acronis Simple method used. You already know that version has support for your NVMe drive. When you get to the question about adding Custom driver, select 1 for yes. This will add the RAID driver you supplied. That should work.
Okay, to be clear, I added the RAID drivers to the WinPE Acronis Boot disk and that part works fine. The OS is Windows 10 Pro 64-bit build 1809. There are 3 NVME drives installed (Samsung 960 EVO 500GB).
But no WinPE versions of Acronis Boot Disk will recognize the stock NVME drives in the Gigabyte Aorus x399 (TR4) motherboard. The only way I can get Acronis to see the drives is if I make a 'simple' Acronis Boot Disk on the affected machine. OR, I have to use the Linux-based Acronis Boot Disk.
I'd like to be able to see both RAID and NVME, but it appears I need two different Acronis Boot Disks to accomplish this.
Yes, but I'm afraid if I do that, then the boot media won't recognize other PC's drives. I've always used the Linux-based Acronis boot media, but it won't recognize the NVME RAID on the x399. So, I made the WinPE Acronis boot media (so I could add the AMD NVME RAID drivers) but the WinPE boot media won't see the regular NVME drives! I guess my solution is to just stick with what I've been doing (Linux-based Acronis boot media) for all my cloning needs, and have a special Acronis boot media dedicated for the NVME RAID. I was just hoping to have ONE Acronis boot media that would work with all my PCs.Thanks!
Mustang wrote:It's easy. Use the MVP ATI Media builder tool. Put the RAID driver in the Drivers_Custom\x64 folder. You should probably remove the IRST folder at this time. Run the tool and select the Build from WinRE option. This will use the same WinRE the Acronis Simple method used. You already know that version has support for your NVMe drive. When you get to the question about adding Custom driver, select 1 for yes. This will add the RAID driver you supplied. That should work.
Okay. Try my suggestion as above except leave the IRST drivers in place. Then try it on your computers. There's a good chance it will work on all of them.
I think you have hit on the right solution. The use of M.2 PCIe NVMe drives in a RAID arrangement demands a boot media dedicated to that configuration. I have one of these setups myself using a Z170 board with two M.2 PCIe NVMe drives in RAID 0. I built a dedicated WinPE media to detect and work with this configuration. I have not tried to use it any other machine have because I don't mind having independent boot media.
I can only suggest that along with RAID drivers you also add the Samsung NVMe driver which you can find in:
C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\secnvme.inf_amd64_****************
You can copy this folder to another location or include this path in the build process to add the Samsung NVMe driver files. This might give you the ability to see non-RAID NVMe drives in other installations or standalone drives.
Carey, yup for the foreseeable future, you will need the WinPE for NVME drives. There is no need to keep the Linux around once you have it though - but that's up to you. WinPE can clone, backup, restore and do everything else the Linux version does. Acronis only used Linux as the primary means in previous versions because it is open source and can be distributed directly, but did not have a good method to create WinPE until they started focusing on it in the 2018 releases and now 2019. The truth is though, theWinPE will recognize MORE drives than default Linux versions of the Acronis rescue media and can be customized much easier, even with the default media builder, but especially with the MVP media builder.
By default all WinPE created with Windows 10 ADK will detect all SATA and eMMC drives and the most current version of Windows 10 ADK (1803 and now 1809) all support PCIe NVME drives (mostly) "out of the box". If you make sure you have the newest Windows ADK installed when you build your WinPE rescue media you shouldn't have issues with hardware compatibility.
The only additional driver you should consider adding your WinPE rescue media is the IRST (Intel Rapid Storage Technology). This is to support PCIe in RAID, not specifically NVME drives. It's just that NVME drives tend to be PCIe now (some can be SATA but will only have SATA speeds) and are configured for RAID because it bypasses multithreading limitations of SATA as well.
- If you use the MVP tool and select the option to add custom drivers, the IRST drivers will be added automatically as we've already added them there. Easy peasy, done and it's going to work on everything.
- If you use the default Acronis media builder and select the ADK method, then you can point it to the IRST drivers you can download from Intel Directly: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27400/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Tec… (the f6flpy-x64.zip package has the latest drivers). Easy peasy, done and it's going to work on everything, but you need to supply the driver yourself at build.
If you use the Acronis media builder "simple" option, it uses the WinRE (recovery environment) which is based off of ADK but has the local system drivers and wifi support. 99 out of 100 times, it will work just fine on any other machine as well, but it is built for the hardware and OS that it was made from. I've yet to not be able to use my own recovery drive on any other system I've tried it on.
It's all really up to you what you think is best and what you want to continue doing (or not). I don't see the point of keeping the Linux media around if you have a good working copy of the WinPE rescue media though, but that's entirely your choice.
Thank you so much for this detailed reply!!!Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:Carey, yup for the foreseeable future, you will need the WinPE for NVME drives. There is no need to keep the Linux around once you have it though - but that's up to you. WinPE can clone, backup, restore and do everything else the Linux version does. Acronis only used Linux as the primary means in previous versions because it is open source and can be distributed directly, but did not have a good method to create WinPE until they started focusing on it in the 2018 releases and now 2019. The truth is though, theWinPE will recognize MORE drives than default Linux versions of the Acronis rescue media and can be customized much easier, even with the default media builder, but especially with the MVP media builder.
By default all WinPE created with Windows 10 ADK will detect all SATA and eMMC drives and the most current version of Windows 10 ADK (1803 and now 1809) all support PCIe NVME drives (mostly) "out of the box". If you make sure you have the newest Windows ADK installed when you build your WinPE rescue media you shouldn't have issues with hardware compatibility.
The only additional driver you should consider adding your WinPE rescue media is the IRST (Intel Rapid Storage Technology). This is to support PCIe in RAID, not specifically NVME drives. It's just that NVME drives tend to be PCIe now (some can be SATA but will only have SATA speeds) and are configured for RAID because it bypasses multithreading limitations of SATA as well.
- If you use the MVP tool and select the option to add custom drivers, the IRST drivers will be added automatically as we've already added them there. Easy peasy, done and it's going to work on everything.
- If you use the default Acronis media builder and select the ADK method, then you can point it to the IRST drivers you can download from Intel Directly: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27400/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Tec… (the f6flpy-x64.zip package has the latest drivers). Easy peasy, done and it's going to work on everything, but you need to supply the driver yourself at build.
If you use the Acronis media builder "simple" option, it uses the WinRE (recovery environment) which is based off of ADK but has the local system drivers and wifi support. 99 out of 100 times, it will work just fine on any other machine as well, but it is built for the hardware and OS that it was made from. I've yet to not be able to use my own recovery drive on any other system I've tried it on.
It's all really up to you what you think is best and what you want to continue doing (or not). I don't see the point of keeping the Linux media around if you have a good working copy of the WinPE rescue media though, but that's entirely your choice.
This is an excellent tip! Thank you!Enchantech wrote:I think you have hit on the right solution. The use of M.2 PCIe NVMe drives in a RAID arrangement demands a boot media dedicated to that configuration. I have one of these setups myself using a Z170 board with two M.2 PCIe NVMe drives in RAID 0. I built a dedicated WinPE media to detect and work with this configuration. I have not tried to use it any other machine have because I don't mind having independent boot media.
I can only suggest that along with RAID drivers you also add the Samsung NVMe driver which you can find in:
C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\secnvme.inf_amd64_****************
You can copy this folder to another location or include this path in the build process to add the Samsung NVMe driver files. This might give you the ability to see non-RAID NVMe drives in other installations or standalone drives.
Carey, Rob,
This new X399 Ryzen board is using a brand new to the scene AMD RAID controller. I do not know much about ut yet and looks like all the drivers are not WHQL signed yet. They look to be Seagate drivers and there are several more files than Intel uses.
I would say that we need to incorporate support for this new controller in the MVP ATI_PE Builder tool as I have a feeling these are going to be really popular!
I built this machine back in May, from a first gen Threadripper. We all know there is now a second gen Threadripper out for over a month. So, for you to say the controller is 'new to the scene' - well, I can only surmise new controllers must be a rare thing. :)This is the build video: https://youtu.be/4nnBs1bGBSUThis is today's video of me showing the audience how to use Acronis to restore to the RAID. (Apparently teaching them as I learn... which was not my original plan.) :)
Enchantech wrote:Carey, Rob,
This new X299 Ryzen board is using a brand new to the scene AMD RAID controller. I do not know much about ut yet and looks like all the drivers are not WHQL signed yet. They look to be Seagate drivers and there are several more files than Intel uses.
I would say that we need to incorporate support for this new controller in the MVP ATI_PE Builder tool as I have a feeling these are going to be really popular!
Carey,
The use of Intel controllers has dominated the market thus far in PCIe based storage. Now with AMD offering their own controller yes, this is new to the scene.
I am not an AMD user and you are the first here on this Forum to bring this controller and your issue forward so again, yes this is new to the scene.
I trhink it will be very popular among enthusiast and so I believe the MVP community here should try to support this new platform for other users.
Thank you for making us aware of the issues with using it.
Enchantech,
I could see including a subset of Ryzen drivers in the MVP tool under the custom driver folder too. However, since I'm not familiar with AMD very much, after doing some research, I fear that the Ryzen processors have unique drivers for each iteration. Intel's IRST drivers are basically one and done across all (well at least most) of the processor's and for all versions of Windows from 7 through 10.
If anyone can confirm if there is a single "universal" Ryzen driver that could be included, I think Mustang and I could be on board with including it though. Otherwise, users may still have to consider including them in their own custom builds.
As it is now, I see that there are AMD categories for
Ryzen
Ryzen Pro
Ryzen Threadripper
And then, it seems like in each category, there is a specific driver for each variation of the processors below them :(
It's based on the chipset. AMD has a limited number of chipsets, so there should be a fixed, limited number of drivers. No sense looking at the CPUs. Just look at the chipsets. x399 and x499 are fairly universal for the AMD TR4 socket type.
Info here should be complete for all AMD chipsets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_chipsets#TR4_Chipsets
Thank you!
I just did a live YouTube video demonstrating the frustrations of the Acronis TI-2019 boot media (both WinRE and Linux!). This is a VERY detailed video and, I hope, should leave you with no questions. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9F-MLAlOu0
Okay, new twist. I've made a new WinRE ATI 2019 boot media with the Samsung NVMe drivers, the AMD NVMe RAID drivers and the Intel RST drivers and guess what?
It will only see the NVMe drives individually, and will NOT see the RAID array. Apparently, the ATI software is incapable of determining if the NVMe drives are in RAID mode if both NVMe and NVMe RAID drivers exist. How weird is that? Guess I'm back to square 1.
But, there is ANOTHER problem! If I try to make the ATI-2019 WinRE boot media on a different AMD system that has the Samsung NVME driver installed, it apparently adds that NVME driver even though I don't want it. I choose ADVANCED mode, select my AMD RAID driver folder, and when I boot to it, it CANNOT see the RAID.
So, I go to my Intel system, go through the exact same steps to create the ATI-2019 WinRE boot media and it detects the AMD RAID on boot as it should.
How's that for a humdinger?
Carey Holzman wrote:
Okay, new twist. I've made a new WinRE ATI 2019 boot media with the Samsung NVMe drivers, the AMD NVMe RAID drivers and the Intel RST drivers and guess what?
It will only see the NVMe drives, and will NOT see the RAID array. Apparently, the ATI software is incapable of determining if the NVMe drives are in RAID mode if both drivers exist. How weird is that? Guess I'm back to square 1.
Carey,
I watched your video. I like a lot of it. Can't say I agree with all of it, but I can tell you took a lot of effort making it and had a pretty fair assessment of the issue and your experience with Acronis in your efforts with the AMD system and using PCIE NVME RAID and individual drives. The only part I was confused on was when you talk about going from RAID to NVME - I'm assuming you mean to a single drive configuration, but not sure if you are talking about keeping the bios in RAID mode, but not RAIDING the drives, or converting the RAID mode back to AHCI in the bios settings. Speaking of, did you try that? I wonder if breaking the RAID in the bios first, would make any difference in how the rescue media detects the drives, when having multiple drivers for the RAID controller embedded in the rescue media.
Not 100%, but I believe combining all 3 of these drivers into one rescue media is a Windows issue, more than Acronis in this case. Windows PE is booting similar to a full Windows OS and is likely defaulting to one of the 3 available drivers since there are multiple of the same type that can be used for the controller. It can't use all 3 at the same time, so it's probably not a conflict, but luck of the draw, or it's defaulting to whichever of those 3 respond the fastest (or alphabetically).
This may be something you run into in any WinPE, regardless of which backup tool you use for your rescue media - even a competing product since it's still based on the host OS environment (WinPE).
I know you're trying to get to a single tool for all of your systems - I'd try to do the same to keep it as simple as possible. However, in this case, you may find that you have to settle on an approach that results in 2 recovery media ... 1 for Intel controllers and 1 for AMD controllers.
Basically, I'd make one recovery set with the IRST drivers and one with the AMD drivers. Personally, I'd leave the Samsung ones out completely - unless all of the systems you work with are using Samsung PCIE NVME drives, then you could probably get away with having one that just has the Samsung drivers. Or consider it as the catch all recovery and have just a Samsung recovery media which may work for all Samsung PCIE NVME drives, regardless if the system is AMD or Intel based.
Unfortunately, I still believe that your "AMD" recovery drive would need to include all of the AMD chipset drivers to be "universal" for all AMD boards. The same applies for Intel, but Intel just seems to package them all together, where AMD separates them out into each specific chipset. Heck, even Intel's latest driver package isn't a one-for-all. Older hardware may still have to rely on an older IRST driver.
On the comment in the video about Acronis needing to include the additional drivers, for these boards... I also believe a conflict could occur and may be why they're not all in the Linux media - there are probably limitations with what is available for Busy Box since that is what's being used under the hood. The default WinPE only includes what Microsoft provides in the ADK that is used to build the media. Third party drivers are all extra things the user typically has to provide (Samsung, IRST, AMD chipset).
For what it's worth, I fully agree the media builder could still be improved and that's what Mustang and I have been trying to do with the MVP tool while the default media builder continues to be developed. It just started as a fun idea and turned out to be pretty useful for a lot of people - best of all, it's helped move along the default media builder towards WinPE which I think has been a great step forward. But, if the default builder could automatically detect the controller drivers and inject those, that would be even better. Unfortunately, for what you're wanting to accomplish with an all-in-one Swiss Army knife approach for all types of hardware, it would still only be helpful for the system it was built on. If Microsoft, nor AMD, can provide a universal and single driver package to address all of their controllers, asking a third party vendor to do the same and marry them together is a tall order.
Really enjoyed the video though!
Okay, new twist. I've made a new WinRE ATI 2019 boot media with the Samsung NVMe drivers, the AMD NVMe RAID drivers and the Intel RST drivers and guess what?
It will only see the NVMe drives individually, and will NOT see the RAID array. Apparently, the ATI software is incapable of determining if the NVMe drives are in RAID mode if both NVMe and NVMe RAID drivers exist. How weird is that? Guess I'm back to square 1.
But, there is ANOTHER problem! If I try to make the ATI-2019 WinRE boot media on a different AMD system that has the Samsung NVME driver installed, it apparently adds that NVME driver even though I don't want it. I choose ADVANCED mode, select my AMD RAID driver folder, and when I boot to it, it CANNOT see the RAID.
So, I go to my Intel system, go through the exact same steps to create the ATI-2019 WinRE boot media and it detects the AMD RAID on boot as it should.
How's that for a humdinger?
Unfortunately the WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment) injects all of the system installed drivers into that recovery environment. The WinRE is built by the OS based upon the hardware of the system and drivers found in the OS.
Instead, you'd probably be better off using the ADK build method and only injecting the drivers you specifically want to use, and my potential recommendation that you'll have to settle for different boot disks with potential options such as:
- one with IRST drivers for Intel based systems
- one with AMD chipset drivers for AMD systems (although, I have a feeling you'd have to download and include all of them if wanting to have a single AMD compatible recovery drive
- one with Samsung chipset drivers - which could work for Intel or AMD systems, but only when using Samsung PCIe NVME drives so would not be suitable for other brands.
I'm heading out for the evening so I'll check back later. Also wanted to throw out there that if you're not against having a couple of rescue media builds, I can show you how to create a multiboot USB drive that allows you to pick the WinPE from a boot menu. I have one 128Gb usb drive with my Win 10 installer (x86 and x64) and then a folder of various WinPE ".wim" files for Acronis, other backup tools, different partition tools, etc. that can boot 32-bit and/or 64-bit legacy (MBR) and/or UEFI mode (depending on the .wim selected of course). It's a true swiss-army tool.
Bobbo,
I find only 2 different drivers for the X399 chipset. They are AMD AHCI RAID drivers - latest version 1.3.1.276 WHQL and AMD NVME drivers - latest version 9.2.0.87 WHQL.
These are all Win 10 x64 drivers. The AHCI version can be used on Win 8 +8.1 as well.
There are 2 other AHCI driver sets. A set for Win 7 + Vista and a set for Win XP
These AHCI drivers are available for both x32 and x64 platforms.
So total of all drivers is 7.
There are AHCI with RAID support for WinXP both x32 + x64.
There are also Pure or RAID only drivers available but these could be left out.
Yes, what I have learned from this experience is to keep using the Linux-based Acronis media for every computer I need it for, as I have for many years now. I just made a 'special' version of the WinRE Acronis boot media for the Threadripper with NVME RAID and I'm just going to leave it like that until (and if) I run into an issue where the Linux-based boot media doesn't work for me (this is the first time.)
Thanks again for all the help and suggestions!! You guys rock!
That is a good plan Carey.