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I knew that you could boot an "EFI bios" from experience with rEFIt from my time as a Mac Admin, so when I got my rEFInd USB drive working with a NVME drive on

I knew that you could boot an "EFI bios" from experience with rEFIt from my time as a Mac Admin, so when I got my rEFInd USB drive working with a NVME drive on a pci-e adapter I was ecstatic until a month later when the USB drive failed and I forgot everything I had done. Make backups of that USB drive or yeah it would be super cool if you could leverage the bios chip on a motherboard.

Tijdreiziger 3y ago
Yeah, I have one of the rare old laptops (HP ZBook G2) that has a PCIe M.2 slot for storage drives, but no support for NVMe booting. This means that the only M.2 drives it’ll boot from are non-NVMe PCIe drives, which were actually made as an HP OEM part (Z Turbo Drive) for this specific model of laptop, but are otherwise nonexistent. It would be really nice if I could somehow add NVMe support to the laptop’s UEFI, but AFAIK there are no existing solutions for this, other than chainloading from a second drive. The subsequent model (ZBook G3) actually does support NVMe, but HP never backported that support to the G2/G1 (of course, according to them, if you simply use the specified OEM parts there’s no problem…). Oh well, 2.5” SATA drives work just fine for such an old beast.
- RulerOf 3y ago
  Definitely an interesting problem. If you're interested in going down the rabbit hole, some light googling suggests that HP uses an AMI BIOS. You might be able to mod it: https://winraid.level1techs.com/t/howto-get-full-nvme-support-for-all-systems-with-an-ami-uefi-bios/30901 https://winraid.level1techs.com/t/howto-get-full-nvme-suppor...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- AshamedCaptain 3y ago
  > the only M.2 drives it’ll boot from are non-NVMe PCIe drives This is not as rare, there were some drives which are logically seen as a PCI AHCI device (aka SATA controller). It is also possible to directly use actual SATA signaling in M.2 socket. This was way more common, and has a slightly different key position in the connector so it is easy to see visually. However I find it more likely it is a NVMe driver but with the proper option BIOS that makes it bootable.
  - Tijdreiziger 3y ago
    Yes, you are correct that they are PCIe AHCI drives. Looking on eBay again, they are only available as the aforementioned HP (or Lenovo) OEM parts directly from China (so you can’t really know if they aren’t fake), and they’re very overpriced (around €50 for a 256GB drive, which is the only available size). Contrast this to NVMe drives, which are ubiquitous and cheap. The laptop unfortunately doesn’t support M.2 SATA, but it does have a regular 2.5” SATA bay, so that’s what I’m using (it still has the OEM drive from the factory :))
    - AshamedCaptain 3y ago
      Note that if you are 100% sure it is an PCIe AHCI drive, an PCIe NVME drive with the correct option ROM will also work, and be bootable. The first NVMe drives all had working option ROMs; you can google around and you'll find people compiling lists.
      - RulerOf 3y ago
        I was pretty astounded this wasn't part of the standard. When did they make these, and was it common?
        AshamedCaptain 3y ago
        I know for sure the Samsung 950 Pro has a working option ROM, and it was pretty common at the time. The successor apparently doesn't have it but I don't know that for sure.
      - Tijdreiziger 3y ago
        Ah, that's interesting. Perhaps if I get around to upgrading some other parts, I'll take a look at that too. Thanks!

Tijdreiziger 3y ago

Yeah, I have one of the rare old laptops (HP ZBook G2) that has a PCIe M.2 slot for storage drives, but no support for NVMe booting. This means that the only M.2 drives it’ll boot from are non-NVMe PCIe drives, which were actually made as an HP OEM part (Z Turbo Drive) for this specific model of laptop, but are otherwise nonexistent. It would be really nice if I could somehow add NVMe support to the laptop’s UEFI, but AFAIK there are no existing solutions for this, other than chainloading from a second drive. The subsequent model (ZBook G3) actually does support NVMe, but HP never backported that support to the G2/G1 (of course, according to them, if you simply use the specified OEM parts there’s no problem…). Oh well, 2.5” SATA drives work just fine for such an old beast.

RulerOf 3y ago
Definitely an interesting problem. If you're interested in going down the rabbit hole, some light googling suggests that HP uses an AMI BIOS. You might be able to mod it: https://winraid.level1techs.com/t/howto-get-full-nvme-support-for-all-systems-with-an-ami-uefi-bios/30901 https://winraid.level1techs.com/t/howto-get-full-nvme-suppor...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
AshamedCaptain 3y ago
> the only M.2 drives it’ll boot from are non-NVMe PCIe drives This is not as rare, there were some drives which are logically seen as a PCI AHCI device (aka SATA controller). It is also possible to directly use actual SATA signaling in M.2 socket. This was way more common, and has a slightly different key position in the connector so it is easy to see visually. However I find it more likely it is a NVMe driver but with the proper option BIOS that makes it bootable.
- Tijdreiziger 3y ago
  Yes, you are correct that they are PCIe AHCI drives. Looking on eBay again, they are only available as the aforementioned HP (or Lenovo) OEM parts directly from China (so you can’t really know if they aren’t fake), and they’re very overpriced (around €50 for a 256GB drive, which is the only available size). Contrast this to NVMe drives, which are ubiquitous and cheap. The laptop unfortunately doesn’t support M.2 SATA, but it does have a regular 2.5” SATA bay, so that’s what I’m using (it still has the OEM drive from the factory :))
  - AshamedCaptain 3y ago
    Note that if you are 100% sure it is an PCIe AHCI drive, an PCIe NVME drive with the correct option ROM will also work, and be bootable. The first NVMe drives all had working option ROMs; you can google around and you'll find people compiling lists.
    - RulerOf 3y ago
      I was pretty astounded this wasn't part of the standard. When did they make these, and was it common?
      - AshamedCaptain 3y ago
        I know for sure the Samsung 950 Pro has a working option ROM, and it was pretty common at the time. The successor apparently doesn't have it but I don't know that for sure.
    - Tijdreiziger 3y ago
      Ah, that's interesting. Perhaps if I get around to upgrading some other parts, I'll take a look at that too. Thanks!