MXM to NVMe adapter with Clover, but I can't figure out Clover

[JonusTechLips]

So! First post on LTT. Yay!

 

I have an old HP Envy 23-d044 I'm fixing up for funsies (Core i7-3770S, 16GB DDR3 1600), and after watching Linus's $169 Gaming PC Video plus figuring that my HP's MXM slot is basically a PCIe (gen 2) slot, I went to AliExpress for this MXM-to-NVMe adapter plus this NVMe SSD. The gameplan? Make this old computer boot from NVMe via the adapted MXM card slot. I downloaded Clover and anxiously anticipated the moment of truth. But, that's where I started tripping up.

 

For the love of God, I can't get Clover to boot my Windows 11 (or 10) installer disk! The BIOS is set to SecureBoot on with Legacy/CSM disabled; I've tried using both official Windows Media Creation Tool and Rufus to make the installer; I've tried a couple older versions of Clover; I've tried using both Rufus and cvad's BDU to create the Clover disk; I've even tried it on my main PC (MSI B550 Tomahawk, Ryzen 5 5600X, 16GB DDR4 3600) and it exhibits the same problem! Clover boots fine, and when I select my Windows installer USB, I get hung on a black screen. I've also noted that (on both machines) for my main Windows SATA SSD there appear to be two options in Clover: Microsoft EFI Boot from EFI and Windows from EFI, but only choosing the former actually boots the SSD successfully, whereas selecting the latter gets me the same hanging black screen. Again, this behavior exhibits on both my fixer-upper HP and my main PC. So, the only EFI Clover can successfully boot on either machine is the Windows Boot Manager, I guess?

 

So I figure I've gotta be missing something super basic with Clover or my computers' boot settings, but I'm left scouring four-year-old forum threads and scratching my head.

[FI Fheonix]

3 minutes ago, JonusTechLips said:

So! First post on LTT. Yay!

 

I have an old HP Envy 23-d044 I'm fixing up for funsies (Core i7-3770S, 16GB DDR3 1600), and after watching Linus's $169 Gaming PC Video plus figuring that my HP's MXM slot is basically a PCIe (gen 2) slot, I went to AliExpress for this adapter plus Amazon for this SSD. So far, so good, but will these shenanigans even work? I downloaded Clover and anxiously anticipated the moment of truth. But, that's where I started tripping up.

 

For the love of God, I can't get Clover to boot my Windows 11 (or 10) installer disk! The BIOS is set to SecureBoot on with Legacy/CSM disabled; I've tried using both official Windows Media Creation Tool and Rufus to make the installer; I've tried a couple older versions of Clover; I've tried using both Rufus and cvad's BDU to create the Clover disk; I've even tried it on my main PC (MSI B550 Tomahawk, Ryzen 5 5600X, 16GB DDR4 3600) and it exhibits the same problem! Clover boots fine, and when I select my Windows installer USB, I get hung on a black screen. I've also noted that for my main Windows drive there appear to be two options in Clover: Microsoft EFI from EFI and Windows from EFI, but only choosing the former actually boots my drive successfully, whereas selecting the latter gets me the same hanging black screen. Again, this behavior exhibits on both my fixer-upper HP and my main PC. So, the only EFI Clover can successfully boot on either machine is the Windows Boot Manager, I guess?

 

So I figure I've gotta be missing something super basic with Clover or my computers' boot settings, but I'm left scouring four-year-old forum threads and scratching my head.

You can try disabling the Fast boot feature as that can cause some compatibility issues. You can also try using Rufus to create a bootable USB drive with the Windows 11 ISO file. 

[MSMSMSM]

Why are you using Clover? Are you attempting to build a Hackintosh? If so, why are you attempting to boot the Windows installer through Clover?

[JonusTechLips]

2 hours ago, FI Fheonix said:

You can try disabling the Fast boot feature as that can cause some compatibility issues. You can also try using Rufus to create a bootable USB drive with the Windows 11 ISO file. 

Thanks for the idea! I tried disabling Fast boot, but no dice. I've also tried using Rufus to make the Windows installer.

 

2 hours ago, MSMSMSM said:

Why are you using Clover? Are you attempting to build a Hackintosh? If so, why are you attempting to boot the Windows installer through Clover?

So per the video I linked, Clover can boot NVMe drives on older devices that predate NVMe--that's all I'm doing, no Hackintosh here. And in the instructionals I've found for pulling this off, it's strongly recommended to boot the Windows installer through Clover so that, having loaded from Clover's NVMe-capable environment, Windows can see and install to the NVMe drive. Booting straight to the installer without Clover does not show the NVMe drive (I've tried), so I can't install to it that way.