- Joined
- Sep 12, 2021
- Messages
- 2
- Motherboard
- Pegatron IPISB-NK or HP Lavaca3-SB
- CPU
- Core i7-3770S
- Graphics
- Radeon HD 7650A (2 GB)
Short History
I have an HP ENVY 23-d060qd that works just fine (i7-3770s, manufactured since Nov 2012). It has UEFI but cannot recognize NVME drives, also has no M.2 slot. It's an all-in-one, basically a laptop incorporated into a 23" display.
It has two PCI Express x1 mini card slots, one is used for the wi-fi card, the other was empty.
I got a M.2 (NGFF) nVME SSD to Mini PCIe Adapter plus Western Digital Blue SN550 1TB NVME SSD, which I installed into that empty mini card slot. The SSD cannot be detected by the system firmware.
Then what I did was I used Clonezilla to clone the HDD to the SSD, I had to shrink the Windows volume from 2TB down to 1TB, but once it was the right size it cloned right over.
The problem/solution I had was that, upon booting, the computer had a conflict between the two drives because they had the same GUID. So the firmware disabled the HDD and worked from the SSD only. That was fine by me, but kind of a waste of the 2TB HDD. The SSD is way fast compared to the HDD, response is instantaneous as you'd expect, but it's kind of too bad Disk Management reports this one disabled drive.
Lately I've been having troubles: first of all Windows defender won't work anymore; then Windows updates keep failing; I can't use system restore anymore; then I installed MalwareBytes, which worked & did a complete scan (no hits), except now when it boots it can't run MalwareBytes anymore either (it reports that both Defender and MalwareBytes cannot start). I tried the MalwareBytes Farbar and the rootkit detector, neither found anything. So I'm fairly confident there's no virus?
Tried out Clover
So I got a USB drive, put Clover on there (I shifted NvmExpressDxe.efi from 'off' to 'BIOS' and 'UEFI' folders). I turned off SecureBoot on the computer firmware, and it boots from Clover! So I deleted all the partitions from the 2TB HDD and installed Ubuntu (works like a champ). But I cannot boot Windows from the NVME using the Grub, it can only work from Clover.
But I think I don't care about Linux, actually. I was hoping Grub could work, but no luck. I might try out MacOSX but really I'd rather just keep the 2TB space for files.
HDD Configuration
sda has 100MB EFI partition where I copied the Clover install from USB and another 1.86 GB NTFS partition for data storage.
nvme0n1 has 100MB EFI partition plus 16MB MSR partition, both of which I recreated from this instruction. The third partition is 930 GB Windows.
Unfortunately when booting I have to press F8 for Advanced Boot Options and select the bottom one, Disable Early Launch Anti Malware Driver.
(The one it was failing on was Spybot, which I thought I had uninstalled, but which cannot be uninstalled anymore. Neither can MalwareBytes be uninstalled, because it can't be started. What the ??)
My Question
Obviously, I'm no expert. I barely comprehend what's going on here. I dimly think the issues could be caused by some of the drivers that Clover is loading that I wonder if I really need, since I only want it to load the NVME driver and boot up Windows.
Look what's here in EFI/CLOVER/drivers/UEFI:
ApfsDriverLoader.efi <- apple file system I think, can I just get rid of this?
AptioInputFix.efi <- don't know, can I get rid of?
AudioDxe.efi <- I kind of think I don't need this, can I get rid of?
Fat.efi <- this might be necessary?
FSInject.efi <- can I get rid of?
NvmExpressDxe.efi <- I'm pretty sure this is the one I need! But do I need any others?
Openruntime.efi <- can I get rid of?
SMCHelper.evi <- can I get rid of?
VBoxHfs.efi <- can I get rid of?
I'm thinking I might like to re-enable SecureBoot and perhaps use the Shimx64.efi and figure out how to register all the hashes of all of these efi's, but I think it might be made easier if I can whittle this down to the minimum? Or am I mistaken. I don't know anything about Shim.
I have an HP ENVY 23-d060qd that works just fine (i7-3770s, manufactured since Nov 2012). It has UEFI but cannot recognize NVME drives, also has no M.2 slot. It's an all-in-one, basically a laptop incorporated into a 23" display.
It has two PCI Express x1 mini card slots, one is used for the wi-fi card, the other was empty.
I got a M.2 (NGFF) nVME SSD to Mini PCIe Adapter plus Western Digital Blue SN550 1TB NVME SSD, which I installed into that empty mini card slot. The SSD cannot be detected by the system firmware.
Then what I did was I used Clonezilla to clone the HDD to the SSD, I had to shrink the Windows volume from 2TB down to 1TB, but once it was the right size it cloned right over.
The problem/solution I had was that, upon booting, the computer had a conflict between the two drives because they had the same GUID. So the firmware disabled the HDD and worked from the SSD only. That was fine by me, but kind of a waste of the 2TB HDD. The SSD is way fast compared to the HDD, response is instantaneous as you'd expect, but it's kind of too bad Disk Management reports this one disabled drive.
Lately I've been having troubles: first of all Windows defender won't work anymore; then Windows updates keep failing; I can't use system restore anymore; then I installed MalwareBytes, which worked & did a complete scan (no hits), except now when it boots it can't run MalwareBytes anymore either (it reports that both Defender and MalwareBytes cannot start). I tried the MalwareBytes Farbar and the rootkit detector, neither found anything. So I'm fairly confident there's no virus?
Tried out Clover
So I got a USB drive, put Clover on there (I shifted NvmExpressDxe.efi from 'off' to 'BIOS' and 'UEFI' folders). I turned off SecureBoot on the computer firmware, and it boots from Clover! So I deleted all the partitions from the 2TB HDD and installed Ubuntu (works like a champ). But I cannot boot Windows from the NVME using the Grub, it can only work from Clover.
But I think I don't care about Linux, actually. I was hoping Grub could work, but no luck. I might try out MacOSX but really I'd rather just keep the 2TB space for files.
HDD Configuration
sda has 100MB EFI partition where I copied the Clover install from USB and another 1.86 GB NTFS partition for data storage.
nvme0n1 has 100MB EFI partition plus 16MB MSR partition, both of which I recreated from this instruction. The third partition is 930 GB Windows.
Unfortunately when booting I have to press F8 for Advanced Boot Options and select the bottom one, Disable Early Launch Anti Malware Driver.
(The one it was failing on was Spybot, which I thought I had uninstalled, but which cannot be uninstalled anymore. Neither can MalwareBytes be uninstalled, because it can't be started. What the ??)
My Question
Obviously, I'm no expert. I barely comprehend what's going on here. I dimly think the issues could be caused by some of the drivers that Clover is loading that I wonder if I really need, since I only want it to load the NVME driver and boot up Windows.
Look what's here in EFI/CLOVER/drivers/UEFI:
ApfsDriverLoader.efi <- apple file system I think, can I just get rid of this?
AptioInputFix.efi <- don't know, can I get rid of?
AudioDxe.efi <- I kind of think I don't need this, can I get rid of?
Fat.efi <- this might be necessary?
FSInject.efi <- can I get rid of?
NvmExpressDxe.efi <- I'm pretty sure this is the one I need! But do I need any others?
Openruntime.efi <- can I get rid of?
SMCHelper.evi <- can I get rid of?
VBoxHfs.efi <- can I get rid of?
I'm thinking I might like to re-enable SecureBoot and perhaps use the Shimx64.efi and figure out how to register all the hashes of all of these efi's, but I think it might be made easier if I can whittle this down to the minimum? Or am I mistaken. I don't know anything about Shim.