5.1 & Windows 10 boot (NVME setup) - I am lost

[chris.pielkenrood]

Hi guys,

To be honest with you, I am lost. I have currently explored most NVME & Windows related topics already on MacRumors, but I am just not finding that specific answer, or I am maybe interpreting it differently.

My setup is is a converted 4.1 to 5.1 Mac Pro with:

• (upgraded) 3,33 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
• Metal GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB (Mac Edition)
• Boot ROM Version: 144.0.0.0.0
• 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

At this moment my setup consists of 2x SSD in the regular HDD Bays (of course with OWC adapter). On 1x SSD I have my Mojave install and on the other I have a (EFI) Windows 10 install. All is working perfectly. Although I do not use bootcamp at all. The parts I will use in the coming future are:

• kryoM.1 PCIe adapter
• Kingston A2000 NVME blade 1TB

My goal is to achieve a legacy install (is this EFI?) of Windows 10 on the NVME blade. As I have read numerous times here on the forum, seems that windows perceives the NVME blade as external storage and therefore does not install. Also legacy boot is preferred as EFI has caused to brick Macpro's while my MacPro is working perfectly with my EFI instal of windos 10, but I will listen .

It seems that user cococheaf has managed to install a legacy boot version of Windows 10 on his NVME blade (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...nvme-m-2-on-mac-pro-5-1.2181495/post-27992582) using just a single Windows DVD, Metal GPU and 1x NVME blade installed.

So, I am trying to attempt the same! But first I have some questions in general:

- In which format should I format the NVMe blade for the windows 10 install?
- In which slot should I use the kroM.2 PCIe adapter? I have my GTX 680 in slot 1. Should it be slot 2?
- Will I be able to install windows using the GTX680 or should I use my original GT120?

Since I do not yet have the NVME blade, I need to wait before installing all of it. I will let you know the outcome. Do you think I will manage?

 

[tsialex]

Windows 10 only supports NVMe with UEFI installs. Windows 10 can be installed as CSM (legacy) or UEFI. Mac Pro is EFI, not UEFI and don't support UEFI Windows 10 installs, SecureBoot and etc…

Use your NVMe blade for macOS and your SATA SSD for Windows 10 installed as CSM.

If you installed Windows 10 as UEFI, you for sure already have SecureBoot certificates inside your BootROM.

 

[chris.pielkenrood]

Windows 10 only supports NVMe with UEFI installs. Windows 10 can be installed as CSM (legacy) or UEFI. Mac Pro is EFI, not UEFI and don't support UEFI Windows 10 installs, SecureBoot and etc…

Use your NVMe blade for macOS and your SATA SSD for Windows 10 installed as CSM.

If you installed Windows 10 as UEFI, you for sure already have SecureBoot certificates inside your BootROM.

Thanks for your response Alex!
I see you respond a lot on this forum, and with the same message as you are doing now. That the Windows 10 can only be installed on a UEFI install to work with NVME blades But what do you think about the message I posted to the claim of another user that it is possible. Quite curious about your reaction.

Also, I will use my NVME blade for my base install of MOJAVE than if this is just the best. What is the best format to use for this drive?

Thanks!

 

[tsialex]

Thanks for your response Alex!
I see you respond a lot on this forum, and with the same message as you are doing now. That the Windows 10 can only be installed on a UEFI install to work with NVME blades But what do you think about the message I posted to the claim of another user that it is possible. Quite curious about your reaction.

Thanks!

Seems you didn't understood what I said, Windows 8.1/10 only works with NVMe if installed with UEFI mode. MP5,1 PCIe drives being external has nothing to do with this, you can install Windows 10 UEFI with several different ways with MP5,1, like cloning from SATA or VMware Fusion raw disk, but that don't change the fact that UEFI is needed for NVMe and MP5,1 is not a UEFI Mac but EFI and Apple/Microsoft never certified UEFI Windows installs with MP5,1.

You can workaround the PCIe drives being external, it's not the problem here. It's the mess SecureBoot causes inside the MP5,1 BootROM.

 

[chris.pielkenrood]

Seems you didn't understood what I said, Windows 8.1/10 only works with NVMe if installed with UEFI mode. MP5,1 PCIe drives being external has nothing to do with this, you can install Windows 10 UEFI with several different ways with MP5,1, like cloning from SATA or VMware Fusion raw disk, but that don't change the fact that UEFI is needed for NVMe and MP5,1 is not a UEFI Mac but EFI and Apple/Microsoft never certified UEFI Windows installs with MP5,1.

You can workaround the PCIe drives being external, it's not the problem here. It's the mess SecureBoot causes inside the MP5,1 BootROM.

You are right, i mixed up things! Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Itconnects]

Seems you didn't understood what I said, Windows 8.1/10 only works with NVMe if installed with UEFI mode. MP5,1 PCIe drives being external has nothing to do with this, you can install Windows 10 UEFI with several different ways with MP5,1, like cloning from SATA or VMware Fusion raw disk, but that don't change the fact that UEFI is needed for NVMe and MP5,1 is not a UEFI Mac but EFI and Apple/Microsoft never certified UEFI Windows installs with MP5,1.

You can workaround the PCIe drives being external, it's not the problem here. It's the mess SecureBoot causes inside the MP5,1 BootROM.

I’m new with all this stuff but I’ve been hearing a lot about this secure boot certificate. What does it do and why is it bad ?

 

[macguru9999]

Seems you didn't understood what I said, Windows 8.1/10 only works with NVMe if installed with UEFI mode. MP5,1 PCIe drives being external has nothing to do with this, you can install Windows 10 UEFI with several different ways with MP5,1, like cloning from SATA or VMware Fusion raw disk, but that don't change the fact that UEFI is needed for NVMe and MP5,1 is not a UEFI Mac but EFI and Apple/Microsoft never certified UEFI Windows installs with MP5,1.

You can workaround the PCIe drives being external, it's not the problem here. It's the mess SecureBoot causes inside the MP5,1 BootROM.

So if I chose to I could install (or clone) windows 10 to my ahci sm951 512GB blade in a PCIe slot ? Just not an nvme ? (for the record I am happy with windows 10 on a sata ssd)

 

[handheldgames]

So if I chose to I could install (or clone) windows 10 to my ahci sm951 512GB blade in a PCIe slot ? Just not an nvme ? (for the record I am happy with windows 10 on a sata ssd)

If you figure out a way to make this work, let me know. Going down this path over the last week with Windows 8.1, I could not get past windows complaining that it did not like the GPT format of the PCIe SSD. For the record, the SSD was setup as a Hybrid GPT/MBR drive. Even though I was attempting to install on the MBR partition, windows prevented in the install.

Completely formatting the drive to MBR, Windows was quick to report that booting from MBR on the AHCI PCIe SSD was not supported by my mac.

While I was able to somewhat enable AHCI on slot#1 & 2 of a traditional SATA SSD, I'm trying to get past 50 additional seconds of boot time that's occurred since enabling AHCI.

 

[fireheadman]

Hello... I've been on a couple threads in this forum.
I'm currently testing out BigSur and Win10... right now they are installed on Sata SSD's
I have intentions of using a NVMe blade for BigSur (PCIe adapter) and my EVO 860 Sata drive for windows

I have everything running right now using OpenCore, but would like some inputs so I can completely understand.
Based on this screenshot, is there a way to know if I am using a CSM or UEFI/EFI install on Windows?

Updated: Found out how to see which it was by booting back into windows and running msinfo32.exe
Looks like I am using UEFI. So now I am curious why my system is running so smoothly? I am not seeing any issues on my current configuration. I was able to update windows to 20H2 also.

Is there a way to verify the bootrom for corruption?
An what are the risks of continued use like this?

diskutil output

From Diskutil

Bootpicker screen