Issues imaging NVMe equipped computers? Lenovo's with Samsung NVMe drives more specifically

Usage and Config OSD
1

I have a PMR open about this, but I was curious if other users may have already solved this in their environment?

BigFix 9.5.5
Deploying image OS level: Windows 10 1607 LTSB
OSD version levels -
MDT bundle: 3.9.06 PE 10 (1607), MDT 8443, usmt10_1607
OS Deployment Server version: 7.1.120.29034

Has anyone ran into challenges imaging computers with NVMe drives? I have a few different models (Lenovo p51, Lenovo 470s, Lenovo m710q) all demonstrating the same behaviors. They PXE boot fine, download the boot.wim fine, but after they begin processing they appear to be matching drivers and then the computer restarts and reloads back into the initial pxe menu. They appear to be trying to find drivers at the pxe binding menu screen (hadnā€™t seen that, before), download the boot.wim one more time, and then restart againā€¦ they bark about an activity loop at this point.

Running critical driver checks against both WinPE10 image and the windows 10 image we deploy, it shows this as a missing driver for all 3 of my impacted models. Iā€™m thinking this is the issue, but not positive.

Device name: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM961/PM961 (144D.A804.144D.A801)

Iā€™ve uploaded the SCCM driver packs for each model but none of them appear to contain this, and Iā€™m not having much luck looking for it out in the wild.

2

Hmm yeah Lenovoā€™s site is pretty hard to navigate. I found a driver for this device, but it only lists Windows 7 x64. You might give it a try though. https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/DS112761

1 Like
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thanks dude. I am going to give this a shot later today. I came up totally short in my search! I find the OS designations like that are often incorrect so weā€™ll see :slight_smile:

4

If youā€™re installing Windows I have seen significant challenges with NVMe drives and Windows. With Linux it is pretty flawless but I had to give up on using an NVMe drive as a boot drive for Windows as the system would just plain not allow Windows to see the drive during install. I wasnā€™t using PXE etc but just manual installs.

5

Iā€™ve ran into that as well, even installing manually from MS oem media. itā€™s a real thorn in my side at the moment. :expressionless:

6

thanks, that was the right driver, or at least the driver management / driver check no longer flags that device as missing a driver.

the same failure/behaviors persist. bummer!

7

it looks like we just needed to perform a ā€˜full syncā€™ after loading that driver to resolve the issue. itā€™s working now. thanks for the help! Iā€™d be curious to know what sort of google-fu you utilized to run into that particular driver? I think I might have limited myself by searching only the model types and win 10.

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On the Lenovo support page, I searched ā€œSM961ā€ in the top-level ā€œSearch Supportā€ box (not in the ā€œDevice/Modelā€ search box) and found it in the results page.