Windows 10: Windows 10 install doesn't create a proper EFI partition when installing on Samsung 970 evo...

Hello everyone!I just spent 2 days helping a friend troubleshooting a problem he had on his computer trying to install Windows 10 on his Samsung 970 evo plus 500 GB NVME M2 SSD He has an Asus X470-Prime pro motherboard which we updated with the lastest current bios bios 6042 from november 2022.We tested a lot of things to finally figure out that when we boot on a fresh windows 10 install media with full UEFI mode enabled on his motherboard CSM disabled and secure boot disabled as well, when we clean his SSD with diskpart and use the windows assistant over his clean disk to create the requi

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Windows 10 install doesn't create a proper EFI partition when installing on Samsung 970 evo nvme SSD

Hello everyone!

I just spent 2 days helping a friend troubleshooting a problem he had on his computer trying to install Windows 10 on his Samsung 970 evo plus 500 GB NVME M2 SSD

He has an Asus X470-Prime pro motherboard which we updated with the lastest current bios (bios 6042 from november 2022).

We tested a lot of things to finally figure out that when we boot on a fresh windows 10 install media with full UEFI mode enabled on his motherboard (CSM disabled) and secure boot disabled as well, when we clean his SSD with diskpart and use the windows assistant over his clean disk to create the required partition by default, there is the default popup that says "windows needs to create more partitions...." that generates the "system" EFI partition and the MSR (reserved) partitions that are generated normally, but the "system" EFI partition is actually defective!

With this EFI partition automatically generated by the windows 10 install media, the motherboard cannot boot on the SSD and the SSD cannot be viewed as a booting option on the motherboard UEFI menu.

BUT!

If we install Ubuntu on the SSD using the same motherboard settings (full UEFI on, CSM disabled, secure boot disabled) on the cleaned SSD, Ubuntu installer generates another EFI partition and this time the SSD boots perfectly and is visible in the motherboard UEFI!

After this we boot on the same Windows 10 install media, we only delete the main ubuntu partition while keeping the EFI partition that was generated by Ubuntu, we create a new main partition to replace ubuntu main partition, we install windows 10 on this one and everything works pefectly!

So as the title of my message says it seems that windows 10 installer doesn't generate a proper EFI system partition for this SSD model. I never had this problem before so i'm wondering if this is a windows installer bug or if it could be linked to something like windows installer doesn't have a proper nvme driver loaded that is required for the specific nvme ssd model that could cause this issue?

Does anybody had this same kind of problem and figured out the precise origin please?

Thanks in advance for your help and have a great day.

Best regards,

Kev.

 

Windows 10 install doesn't create a proper EFI partition when installing on Samsung 970 evo nvme SSD

You need to have Secure Boot enabled and confirm you are booting the install media as UEFI. It is essential for the install media to be accessible prior to booting or rebooting.

I am currently running a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2 TB version and it installed fine.

 

Windows 10 install doesn't create a proper EFI partition when installing on Samsung 970 evo nvme SSD

Thank you for your answer.

The install media was a usb key made with windows 10 iso and rufus app set to GPT / UEFI non-csm mode so it could only be booted as UEFI.

We tried the install with secure boot enabled as well and ended up with the same problem. Also on my own computer i installed windows 10 in uefi non CSM mode on my own M2 SSD (WD850) without secure boot and i never had this problem.

So are you really sure that secure boot is mandatory for the efi partition created by the windows 10 installer to work? For windows 11 yes but not for windows 10 right?