SSD upgrade EFI Shell Screen issue

[cheifbrody]

Hi

I'm hoping someone can help as I'm not doing great at this upgrade.
After constantly battling for space as Windows 10 wants to upgrade I bought a WD GREEN M.2 2280 SSD 240gb

Installed physically ok

Cloned 32gb Windows drive to new WD 240gb drive using SSD using EaseUS

Disabled SCC eMMC Support

Windows launched and was running on new drive but had no additional space, all free space was unallocated

Resized Windows partition using Aomei, now have a Windows partition using the unallocated drive capacity so now at 226gb. Yay. For some reason Windows is now showing a D: partition listing it as a primary partition. Remove drive letter in WIndows Disk Management to hide that.

Now to update Windows at last to shut it up.

Windows updates carry out

Come back after a while and all has not gone to plan, I am now greeted with an EFI Shell Version 2.5 screen



After exiting out of that, head to BIOS and see that my new drive has disappeared from the Boot Option Order menu.

BIOS does however see the 240gb drive listed in the SATA Controller Configuration page though, so it knows it is there.

Re-enable SCC eMMC Support again to boot onto original 32gb drive, Windows loads off this and within Windows explorer it can see both drives.

BIOS again, disable SCC eMMC Support, exit and greeted with EFI Shell Screen again. Exit command out of that again and see what happens. Continues on, detects no media on IP4 and IP6 and then proceeds to load Windows from the 240gb drive?!?

So ultimately I can now use my machine again but something is clearly amiss here, whilst not the end of the world having to exit from EFI screen on boot, its a bit of a pain.

Tried enabling CSM support in BIOS Boot Option Menu which then does show WD 240gb drive but does not show it as Windows Boot, just its hard drive name. Selected this as only boot option and I just get a black screen with a CLI cursor that does not respond to input. Backed that change out as clearly that wasn't right.

Does anyone have any idea where I have gone wrong?

Here is how Windows is seeing the drive now in Disk Management if that offers any clues (I'm not sure where partition 4 has come from, it wasn't there before I updated Windows)

 

[Villa]

I suggest you start again but fresh install Windows to the M.2 drive.
https://theminixforum.com/index.php?threads/neo-n42c-4-windows-10-pro-os-image-1903.2124/

 

[notrui]

@cheifbrody

I advice you to start again as @Villa suggested.

Also do this first:
1-Bios with default settings
2-after bios default settings disable eMMC.
3-install OS in SSD (with this you will preserve all eMMC data) but SSD will be formatted (make a backup first).
Backup-copy just the files you might need, such as docs, etc (to NAS, usb, etc) and don't make a backup full image.
4-after finishing install process you can enable eMMC again (if you enable i advice you to format eMMC because it is not good having two drives with the same OS installed) for extra storage.

 

[ArcticWolf]

I suggest you start again but fresh install Windows to the M.2 drive.
https://theminixforum.com/index.php?threads/neo-n42c-4-windows-10-pro-os-image-1903.2124/

Once done, if you'd also like to immediately update from 1903 to 1909 using the Win update system I can confirm it works fine with the N42C-4 . (1803 to 1809 using Win Update was unfortunately problematic for me with the N42C-4, for example. I encountered a lot of system errors at the time. I ended up rolling back & deferred the feature update to wait for the official MINIX 1809 image.)

(I generally avoid using the Win update system to later feature updates with my MINIX Windows devices (without at least first creating a full system image in case of any issues), but the update to 1909 has fortunately been one worth doing & my N42C-4 is running very nicely .) Obviously, this is purely my subjective choice & opinion, it's entirely up to you as to what you'd prefer yourself.

As always, take a full sys image first just in case, but I have no complaints .

Again, this is purely my personal preference. I also use a 240 GB SSD with my N42C-4 which was immediately installed out of the box new, but I've also kept the eMMC permanently disabled with the factory Win image still intact as a backup in case of an SSD failure. (It ensures my N42 having immediate continuity should the SSD suddenly fail until I can source a replacement SSD, but I have no shortage of NAS storage to worry needing the eMMC for the extra space .)

Enjoy the device . They're very capable gadgets.