Arch Linux

themakabrapl

Member

Registered: 2023-03-10

Posts: 7

[SOLVED] Booting from a M.2 with a mobo that has no support for it

I have recently bought a Lexar NM790 purely for storage purposes, so now that i have storage space I thought of switching to Arch Linux from Windows.

But I knew that with my motherboard it would be impossible to boot from it directly because my Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 rev 4.0 has literally no support for M.2's which is absolutely not surprising with how old it is.

I have even tried installing grub on a diffrent drive so it could boot the system from the m.2, understandably it didn't work, grub didn't see the m.2 because nither has the motherboard

So do you have any ideas of how to boot from it or is it just impossible?

EDIT:
The m.2 is connected via the m.2 pci-e adapter

Last edited by themakabrapl (2024-02-17 21:49:18)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,489

Re: [SOLVED] Booting from a M.2 with a mobo that has no support for it

How is the M.2 connected to the mainboard?

cryptearth

Banned

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 74

Re: [SOLVED] Booting from a M.2 with a mobo that has no support for it

Oh, 990FX ... those were the days - I have an old ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z with an AMD FX8350 and 4x 8gb corsair vengence on it lying around somewhere - good board (although one of the 4 ram modules is a bit faulty).
Back then I always wanted an ASUS RAIDR - one of the first pci-e SSDs - but never bought one.
According to it's datasheet it used an LSI pci-e to s-ata controller - so it wasn't true nvme yet.

It's likely not gonna work without some weird controller mash-up as the NM790 is a true nvme drive.

So, what you need is an active nvme controller - not just some passive adapter card - so it would go: pci-e > nvme-controller > nm790.
What I found so far are the Broadcom 9400/9500/9600 cards with those "broadcom tri-state" chips. According to thier datasheet SOME of them seem to be able to be used as nvme controller. But you would also need a M.2 to U.2 carrier and a sff-8643 to u.2 cable.

Quite a fun task you got there ... the above is what I found. Maybe some else knows a better solution with an active nvme controller which is also supported on linux ...
I would recommend using that nvme stick in some more modern board which does support nvme natively. There doesn't seem to be many active nvme controllers out there - although it's quite a valid market to get some older hardware more than just RAID of s-ata ssds.

Last edited by cryptearth (2024-02-14 20:29:01)

frostschutz

Member

Registered: 2013-11-15

Posts: 1,422

Re: [SOLVED] Booting from a M.2 with a mobo that has no support for it

just use any other boot device? usb stick with grub, boot, kernel, initramfs and go

themakabrapl

Member

Registered: 2023-03-10

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Booting from a M.2 with a mobo that has no support for it

How is the M.2 connected to the mainboard?

Via the m.2 pci-e adapter

just use any other boot device? usb stick with grub, boot, kernel, initramfs and go

I have written that i did that but I may just not understand what you are saying correctly

So, what you need is an active nvme controller - not just some passive adapter card - so it would go: pci-e > nvme-controller > nm790.
What I found so far are the Broadcom 9400/9500/9600 cards with those "broadcom tri-state" chips. According to thier datasheet SOME of them seem to be able to be used as nvme controller. But you would also need a M.2 to U.2 carrier and a sff-8643 to u.2 cable.

That seems quite fun although messy and horendously expensive (like with 2x that i could upgrade my pc eliminating the problem) so it's a no go

I would recommend using that nvme stick in some more modern board which does support nvme natively. There doesn't seem to be many active nvme controllers out there - although it's quite a valid market to get some older hardware more than just RAID of s-ata ssds.

Yea I probably should upgrade my pc in the near future amd fx8350 with gtx 750ti have gotten too old for a lot of things.

I have found a tutorial for how to boot a Dell PowerEdge from a PCIe NVMe drive, they use clover bootloader and made it use a driver for nvme drives. But I don't know if this driver that the clover provides would even work with booting linux.
https://www.tachytelic.net/2020/10/dell … 51914&amp=

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,489

Re: [SOLVED] Booting from a M.2 with a mobo that has no support for it

linux can see/use the M.2 device?  Can UEFI shell see/use the M.2 device?

Last edited by loqs (2024-02-15 17:46:52)

themakabrapl

Member

Registered: 2023-03-10

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Booting from a M.2 with a mobo that has no support for it

linux can see/use the M.2 device?  Can UEFI shell see/use the M.2 device?

Like i have already said the UEFI cannot see the m.2, Linux and Windows do.

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,489

Re: [SOLVED] Booting from a M.2 with a mobo that has no support for it

If in the UEFI shell you load clover's NvmExpressDxe.efi can you then see the device?
Edit:
https://ntzyz.space/post/load-nvme-driv … efi-shell/

Last edited by loqs (2024-02-15 17:47:00)

themakabrapl

Member

Registered: 2023-03-10

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Booting from a M.2 with a mobo that has no support for it

If in the UEFI shell you load clover's NvmExpressDxe.efi can you then see the device?

The driver does work and I can boot from my m.2 now but I haven't used Clover Bootloader I just used systemd-boot
That's why it took so long sorry

Thanks to all of you for help

cryptearth

Banned

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 74

Re: [SOLVED] Booting from a M.2 with a mobo that has no support for it

Oh - so just using a dumb passive pci-e adapter card DOES work? Ok - then I completely missed the point.
I thought that in order to use a nvme drive the system has to have support for it. I wasn't aware that it does work with just some drivers ... it seems I missed quite a lot on the way.

Ok, so when the OS can see the drive and it's just a question of booting - I would use a cheap thumb drive for boot and mount the nvme just as a normal data partition. Going the effort to also boot from it by exploiting uefi drivers - well done, mate. You shall fix yourself a drink for that.