Cannot install Windows on NUC7I5BNK

[minipc2018]

Hello everyone,

I had Windows 10 installed on the NVME drive of my NUC.

One day, Windows was trying to update. The process got up to 90-ish something percent and then the nuc would freeze. Tried several times by force shutting down the nuc with same results.

Anyway, the thing is that now I cannot make a clean install of Windows 10 to the NVME drive anymore. Everytime I got to the part to select the drive to install Windows, the drive doesn't show up (though it appears on the Bios).

I also think I messed up the GRUB from Windows since I've been trying to install several distributions of linux without success, after not being able to install Windows 10 in the first place.

My setup is:

- NUC: NUC7i5bnk (slim version)
- OS: Windows 10 Pro latest version
- Storage: Samsung 970 EVO 250GB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD (MZ-V7E250BW)
- Memory: 2 x Crucial 4GB Single DDR4 2400 MT/S (PC4-19200) SR x8 Unbuffered SODIMM 260-Pin Memory - CT4G4SFS824A (8GB Total)

Drivers:
BIOS: BNKBL 357.86 A (latest)

If anyone can help me I´ll be forever grateful!

[Jose_V_Intel]

Hi minipc2018,

I want to let you know that we are checking this internally.

As soon we have more information we will let you know.

Regards.

[Jose_V_Intel]

Hello minipc2018,

After checking since this is happening with other drives., I want to recommend you to contact us directly through chat, phone, or web ticket in order to assist you with the warranty replacement.

Regards.

Jose V.

Intel® Customer Support Technician

[Jescofield]

i think that this may be happening for the same reason that i am currently experiencing boot issues after cloning to an nvme. after a couple days of trying to troubleshoot this issue to be able to save my data and repair the boot partitions i was somehow able to get in to log on where i have ADATA ssd toolbox which came with my drive and i noticed the WWN is all zeros. while tying to find out if its related to my issue i find that its used for addressing drives, especially in fibre networks but also other related scenarios. i also found a solution in another forum for linux users where someone mentions the fact that it is a common bug when specifically using a direct attached nvme (maybe also ssd in general). Mine is installed in an m.2 slot which is usually the connection for NUC storage if im not mistaken. but that solution was for lunix and I am a windows user. this post relates to windows as well. Does anyone think this might be the cause of issue here and if so, any ideas on how to tell windows to possibly recognize the drive by directing it to the nvme by either giving it the correct WWN or if it was somehow wiped when attempting install, how to give it a new one that will be visible?

[minipc2018]

Hi @Jescofield , I´m really interested on reading more about the topics you mentioned, can you please provide me the links that you were reading about?

The really curious part about my situation is that only a specific distribution of Linux can actually read the drive: linux-lite-3.6-32bit. I even successfully installed the full OS there, but after upgrading Linux Lite the system won´t boot again.

Other Linux based distributions (32 bit or 64 bit) like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Puppy Linux don work at all.

For Windows, the only way I can make the nvme drive to appear is when I manually load the vendor´s drivers, which I understand is not even necessary.

Anyway, I gave up with this nvme drive and ended up buying a regular m.2 sata ssd drive. So far it has worked perfectly dual booting Linux Mint and Windows 10.

[Jescofield]

im pretty sure this is the place i was talking about https://superuser.com/questions/1349499/motherboard-uefi-doesnt-detect-m-2-ssd-drive

and here is the program screenshot where i was seeing all 0's