ZBook 15 G2 with 2280 NVMe drive

[gluon]

Hello,

 

I've successfully installed an NVMe drive (WD SN580 1Tb) on my ZBook 15 G2. Here's some things I've learned.

 

The G2's M.2 slot connects to the chipset (QM87) via 2 x PCIe 2.0 lanes. This limits the read/write speed with any SSD to ~1Gb/s. The benefits of an NVME update are thus in added disk space, faster boot and better overall responsiveness.

 

The slot is designed for 2260 form factor. The SN580 is two centimeters longer (2280). It still fits, and can be installed without cutting the chassis. The trick is to first slip the drive underneath the service cover latch. Then, line it with the slot and gently pull it in. 

 

Here's a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeFcqf3RGSk#t=1m20s

 

 

Lacking firmware support, the NVMe driver needs to be added manually into the boot process. This is easily done with a boot manager, which must be stored on the EFI partition of a separate drive (secondary HDD, USB drive, SD card...). 

I chose rEFInd as the boot manager, it being lightweight and easy to configure.

 

The NVMe driver file comes with Clover boot manager. It can be found under /CloverV2/EFI/CLOVER/drivers/off/UEFI/Other/NvmExpressDxe.efi 

 

Copy the file to rEFInd's driver folder, which is /EFI/boot/drivers_x64/

 

If all's well on the next boot, rEFInd will display the OS bootloader(s) on the NVMe drive.

With a working drive, it's time to install some OS'. I dualboot to Win10 and Linux Mint 21, so I started with the Win.

 

Before installing Win10, remove all other hard drives from the system. This is to help the setup, which assigns the drive letter C : to the target volume before copying files. 

 

Multiple drives cause confusion as C : gets assigned to a boot partition (it cannot be manually re-assigned with DISKPART at that point). User clicks Next, setup finds the partition is wrong, the installation is aborted.

 

In BIOS/Advanced, set Boot option to UEFI Native (without CSM). Disable both Fast Boot, so the system can boot from USB, and Secure Boot, to avoid boot verification. 

 

I created the Win10 USB from an ISO file with Rufus. The USB drive must use a GUID partitioning table (GPT), so it can boot in UEFI mode.

 

Note: I created an ISO from my existing Windows installation with these instructions. Cloning the partitions might also work.

 

Only the rear left USB port is bootable.  Windows installer should boot automatically. Otherwise, go to BIOS / Select Boot Device (F9). It should be listed as USB External Drive.

 

If the setup shows any partitions on the NVMe drive, delete them. Again, this is to help the setup. Before installing, the drive is scanned again. Setup will then partition the unallocated space with the default scheme. This is the desired outcome for now.

 

Installation should now proceed. If it fails, remove the USB stick, close the setup window, return to the main screen. Click Install now. Setup asks for installation media. Click Ok to everything, and close the setup window again. 

In the main screen, connect the USB drive again.  Click Install now again. Setup has now refreshed its list of disks and should be able to proceed all the way. 

 

 

After the installation, Windows reported a boot error. I booted into the Win10 installer again. Opened command prompt (shift+F10). Ran the commands 

 

bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd

 

and rebooted Windows into Safe Mode. So far, so good. Another reboot, normal Windows startup.

 

 

Linux installation was a breeze, with the usual procedures.

 

And that's it! The primary system drive is now NVMe! It's now safe to re-attach other hard drives. rEFInd can now be copied to an (empty) EFI partition on the secondary drive, and it will boot from there.

 

Would this work on ZBook G1? It's possible. The M.2 slot in G1 was meant for the WWAN module. It would probably get a single lane and half the speed. But the drive should fit, and thus, it could work.