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Looked at many posts but did not find a solution: I wanted to replace the original m.2 PCIe Kingston 500GB drive with m.2 WD 4TB SN850X (both are m.2 PCIe), with the Acer PC having one m.2 slot and one PCIe 16 connector.

  1. Cloned disk with Acronis
  2. Replaced old disk with clone – no boot
    (UEFI firmware recognizes new drive - NVMe dev installed)
  3. Error code: Kernel security check failure
  4. After three unsuccessful boot attempts can get into Win rescue environment:
    Troubleshoot → Advanced Options → startup repair (no luck)
  5. Installed the clone on PCIe.
  6. Windows boots normally, all data intact
  7. UEFI firmware does NOT recognize SSD
    (NVMe Device NOT installed; First boot device: Win Boot Mgr)

At this stage I am stuck:

  • UEFI firmware does not recognize the SSD in the PCIe slot, yet Windows boots
  • When connecting that same SSD to m.2, I get error code: Kernel Security failure
  • Another strange thing: Leaving original SSD in M.2 slot, and adding the new SSD on PCIe, the system boots, and files show up on both drives; however, in this configuration Windows says that the new (larger) SSD is the boot drive!!?

With both drives installed, Windows boots, and it looks like it boots from the new drive which is not even recognized in the UEFI firmware.

Screenshot1 Screenshot2

JW0914
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captainron
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  • Bit of a long shot - This almost seems like a BIOS/firmware issue to me. Have you checked to see if you are running the latest BIOS/firmware available for your Acrer? – davidgo Feb 05 '24 at 04:06
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    You are correct. the EFi partition that is being used to boot Windows absolutely is on the smaller drive currently – Ramhound Feb 05 '24 at 07:03
  • Aloha Davidgo, yes, did update to the latest BIOS. Seems only (slight) enhancement to security between original and latest update. Thank you for input! – captainron Feb 05 '24 at 07:26
  • Ramhound, how did you determine that the EFI partition is on the small drive only? Any way to move it, if that really is the case? – captainron Feb 05 '24 at 07:28
  • The M.2 standard supports two protocols for solid state drives: SATA (usually through AHCI) and NVMe. The equivalent of initramfs on Windows usually only have drivers for one of these. – mcendu Feb 05 '24 at 07:59
  • @captainron As a Linux admin I would, from a Linux live disk, use lspci and lsblk to determine the filenames of the clone source and destination (Hint: /dev/sda and /dev/nvme0n1 are whole disks, /dev/sda1 and /dev/nvme0n1p1 are partitions), then run dd if=/dev/src of=/dev/dst. – mcendu Feb 05 '24 at 08:08
  • @captainron - By looking at the attributes of your partitions. Plus you description supports that conclusion – Ramhound Feb 06 '24 at 11:04
  • Usually, Kernel Security failure points to either hardware failure or corrupted system files (use BlueScreen View to analyze the dumps) - the latter can be negated by using Windows' native solution for cloning partitions: WIMs, which hash verifies all files during the capture and apply process. When UEFI doesn't recognize a NVMe drive, it's often driver related or a hardware issue. Corrupted system files can be fixed via Steps 1 - 6 (use offline method) – JW0914 Feb 06 '24 at 14:05
  • JW0914, Thank you for your succinct summary of my original question! – captainron Feb 08 '24 at 00:02
  • JW014: With the clone in the PCIe slot, and no m.2 drive, Windows boots, and all files are accessible. Hence corrupt files and driver issues seem to NOT apply in this case. Still would like to get past the Kernel issue to get closer to be able to boot clone from m.2. I will try BlueScreen Views... – captainron Feb 08 '24 at 01:45

2 Answers2

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It may because the drivers of the old SSD and the new SSD are different. Install just 4TB SSD and boot your system using Windows installation media. After booting and click "Next", click "Repair your computer" at the bottom (Do not click on "Install Now") and perform a startup repair.

KAV00S
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You need to turn off 'secure boot' within the bios. Some bios require an admin password set in order to turn off. Once this 'feature' is switched off the new SSD should boot.

JohnnyVegas
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