NVMe boot with SuperMicro X9DA7 & X9DRi-F

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olivierLA75

New Member
Nov 15, 2021
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Hello there, is there anyone that was able to make the NVMe work with Supermicro X9DRD-7LN4F and that would have the modified bios in hand? that would be very appreciated. thanks in advance!
 

olivierLA75

New Member
Nov 15, 2021
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I forgot to mention, I installed Ubuntu 18.04 onto the drive. I was able to avoid having to use Windows on the server. But I still had to use Windows on a separate box in order to splice the new nvme rom into the original BIOS.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hey, I’m trying to install Ubuntu on an NVMe as well. Do you mean that I should have windows installed first?
 

RolloZ170

Well-Known Member
Apr 24, 2016
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One question: I got the X9DAi (16 memory slots). Is it possible to have some Nvme Raid?
you can build a software raid in windows with every kind of drive you want.
if you want to boot from a Nvme drive without modifiying the BIOS install windows on a SATA SSD,
then install windows from that drive running Win on the Nvme drive. The Bootloader stays on the SATA SSD, but all
the remaining system ist booted from the Nvme.
 
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SniperTB

New Member
Dec 6, 2021
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Modified the BIOS, I have now some "PP: " Drive available. Next step will be installing Windows Server 2019 on that machine.
Tried a lot already, always hangs on the moving dots in the setup preload. Did you face that as well?
 

awedio

Active Member
Feb 24, 2012
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Wow, just came back to look at this thread.
Back in 2017, I didn't think anyone else would care about X9 MBs booting off NVMe!

I can see that much smarter people than myself have contributed!
 
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madLyfe

Member
Jul 18, 2017
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Just wanted to signal that I applied the nvme bios/uefi patch today on the most recent bios 2.3a for a X9SCL-F board. To my best knowledge the X9SCM and X9SCL share the same bios.
Now happily running a proxmox setup booting from nvme on the X9SCL-F.

I followed the guide from win-raid forum, had to choose the NvmExpressDxe_Small.ffs when inserting after the CSMCore
When installing proxmox all bios settings were set to UEFI only, before running the proxmox installer.
do you have this bios file any longer?
 

Jonnyomega

New Member
Jan 23, 2016
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Just want to chime in.


I was able to get this working on my system after a bios update. I hope this helps someone.


X9DRI-F REV 1.11A
AOC-SLG3-2M2.
Boot drive Sata ssd.
Bios set to legacy.
Server 2012.
plugged into CPU 2 Slot 6 x16 - set in bios to 4x4x4x4.
TEST DRIVES - samsung 950 pro 512GB + samsung 970 pro 1TB. ( both drives has w10 installed and are over 50% full)

In bios 3.3 only one drive was showing in the OS.

Updated bios via official SM download to 3.4.
Both drives show up in device manger now.
Samsung magician sees both drives as gen 3 x4 but says they are not supported. (Probably due to the card)

Crystal disk mark ran independently on each drive. (Default 1GB setting)
970 pro – 2980 read – 2722 write
950 pro – 2355 read – 1480 write

I am thinking of doing a simple mirror storage pool so I wanted to test both drives at the same time.

Crystal disk mark ran at the same time both drives. (Testing R/W accessing both)
970 pro – 2922 read – 2721 write
950 pro – 2414 read – 1481 write

Now that this is working in plan to get 2 SN700 4TB drives and set in a simple storage spaces mirror. Simple storage for everything I need.
 

Stuff

New Member
Feb 27, 2022
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1
Hi,

Just registered to join in on the topic.

Anyone been successful at installing ESXi 7 with this mod?

I have an X9DRL board and I've applied the mod successfully, installed Windows. It seems to boot and be working.
If I install ESXi it just boots to EFI shell. So Im guessing it has something to do with the configuration of the EFI partition.

If you want the modified bios for X9DRL, let me know and I'll share it.
 

bzaras

New Member
Apr 15, 2019
22
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Poland, Cieszyn
Hi,

Just registered to join in on the topic.

Anyone been successful at installing ESXi 7 with this mod?

I have an X9DRL board and I've applied the mod successfully, installed Windows. It seems to boot and be working.
If I install ESXi it just boots to EFI shell. So Im guessing it has something to do with the configuration of the EFI partition.

If you want the modified bios for X9DRL, let me know and I'll share it.
Try removing all bootable devices in bios menu, then reboot, re - add them via bios and reboot. I have gone trough this with some ubuntu updates because i do use non standard realtime kernel, I have to add the drive to boot menu everytime i update kernel.
 

Stuff

New Member
Feb 27, 2022
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1
Try removing all bootable devices in bios menu, then reboot, re - add them via bios and reboot. I have gone trough this with some ubuntu updates because i do use non standard realtime kernel, I have to add the drive to boot menu everytime i update kernel.
Thanks for the reply.

It was not that simple unfortunately. :)

Was searching the web and stumbled upon a reddit post with a solution that fixed it for me.

After ESXi 7 installation I booted GParted, scanned the first partition with fschk. (available from gui menu)
Then it showed up in bios as UEFI OS option.


--->
xxxx://xxx.reddit.com/r/vmware/comments/ns1t5a/esxi_702_failing_to_boot_in_uefi_mode_a_possible/

kepardi99
3 mo. ago
Thank you! Had same issue with old system, took me few hours of fruitless debugging and learning of too many EFI details. Used GParted to fix first partition.

Finally Exsi boots!!
 

mko!

New Member
May 10, 2022
5
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1
I double checked that, im pretty sure I have it correct.

View attachment 17453

View attachment 17454

I am only seeing the one 1TB nvme drive, 4 are currently installed in the card.

Hello, I am trying the same thing and set Bifurcation to x4x4x4x4 and only 1 drive shows up. I tried on slot 5 and slot 1 with same and then no drives show up. I am confused.

Can you share your Bios screen and which slot you have the ASUS NVMe card installed?
 

mko!

New Member
May 10, 2022
5
0
1
Hi again.

Here are my bifurcation settings in bios. Only 1 NVMe shows

Supermicro X9DA7
ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 Card V2 PCIe 3.0 - Qty 2, NVMe installed on card
 

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sko

Active Member
Jun 11, 2021
344
201
43
The slot numbering in BIOS often doesn't line up with whats printed on the board and/or (especially) on the risers. You basically have to find out which one in the BIOS corresponds to the actualy physical port (and maybe label them accordingly somewhere in the case).
I also had to play this game last week with one of our servers here that got an AOC-SLG3-2M2 card - riser imprint said "slot 3", corresponding one in BIOS was "slot 2"...