Problem Using WOR-Flasher

[SeaDog58]

Setup:

• Which version of Windows you chose: Windows Pro 11
• Raspberry Pi model: 5
• Name of SD card you tried to flash (some are too slow or too small): Using 500gb SSD connected to USB
• What day you first downloaded wor-flasher: Updated 22 May 2024
• What linux operating system you are using to run wor-flasher on. (Raspberry Pi OS, Twister OS, Debian, etc): Raspberry PI OS

Procedure:

Latest attempt to Flash Windows Pro 11 to a Raspberry Pi 5 using WoR-Flasher
• Steps completed without error until “Downloading Windows ESD Image”.
• Then errors in downloading numerous CUIDs. Error code 8.
• Continued to download 4.8gb of data.
• Download verified.
• Extracted image.esd to /home/John/wor-flasher-files/winfiles_22631.2861_en_us
• Preparations completed with GDK error which I understand is not critical.
• I re-booted Raspbian OS after changing the boot order to start with NVMe.
• In “Windows on Raspberry Pre-installation Environment”.
• Displayed “Preparing Disk”.
o Western Digital 1TB SN750 NVMe Internal Gaming SSD Solid State Drive - Gen3 PCIe, M.2 2280, 3D NAND, Up to 3,470 MB/s - WDS100T3X0C
o It is in an external enclosure with a USB 3 cable.
o The drive in this enclosure worked fine on a PC running Windows Pro 11.
o After about 12 hours, there was no additional activity.
• I moved the NVMe drive to a PC running Windows Pro 11 and used Disk Management to explore the drive.
o There were 3 partitions – 953mb FAT32, 16.76gb exFAT, 913.38gb not formatted.
o In the exFAT partition there is an install.wim file (5.1 gb) which apparently was never executed.
• I have attached the Log file from the Pre-installation Environment.
• Is there any way to use install.wim while drive is connected to PC?
Any help would be appreciated.
WoR-PE.log

[schau80269]

This is not an issue with WoR-Flasher, but rather a strange HW/SW compatibility issue. I've had massive trouble installing Win11 Pro ARM64 24H2 into NVMe SSDs mounted into USB enclosures that feature the Realtek RTL9210B chip inside (e.g. Sabrent EC-SNVE) for my Raspberry Pi 5 (and Orange Pi 5 Plus). Problem symptoms were similar to yours. I then changed to a different USB enclosure with Jmicron JMS583 chip inside (e.g. 1st gen Plugable USBC-NVME) and OS installation proceeded normally to completion. For some unknown reason, Win11 ARM64 OS installation bits just do not play nice with RTL9210B-based NVMe USB enclosures, but Win11 x86-64 OS (for Intel & AMD) does not have this issue. Even updating the firmware of the Realtek USB enclosure did not help. Switching to Jmicron-based USB enclosure is the only realistic workaround I've found. Tricky part is how to identify whether a USB enclosure uses Realtek or Jmicron chip as the manufacturers never volunteer this info.

[SeaDog58]

Thanks. This is very helpful. I have found that Plugable uses both JMicron and RealTek chipsets in various versions. I have asked Plugable Support how to identify the correct version. I’ll see what they have to say.

[schau80269]

Another option is to connect an NVMe SSD directly to the Raspberry Pi 5 with a m.2 PCIe hat. With latest bootloader installed into the Pi 5, WoR-Flasher works great installing Win11 ARM64 24H2 OS directly into NVMe SSDs. The performance is good too, especially with the PCIe configured to gen 3 speed.

[SeaDog58]

I just spoke to Plugable this morning. With their enclosure they now use a RealTek chipset. They used the JMicron chipset in an early version which is not out of stock and not available. They did have a good idea. “I have not tested with Windows on Raspberry Pi (ARM) however I do not normally recommend this enclosure for direct connection to the Raspberry Pi. NVMe SSDs require a great deal of power and often switch on/off quite quickly, I have found in testing with the Pi 3 and Pi 4 that this causes the USB host controller to go offline and disconnects the drive during some read and most write operations. Using an independently powered USB 3.0 hub between the enclosure and the Raspberry Pi should resolve this disconnection issue.” From Plugable Support. I have ordered a powered USB 3.0 hub and will try it with the enclosure I have already. I did try the NVMe SSD in a Hat for the Pi, but had the same problem with trying to install Windows 11 ARM. I will let you know the results of my testing. It may be a power problem. John

[SeaDog58]

I have given up trying to get WOR-Flasher to work with an NVME drive. I tried a powered USB hub twice with a 500gb NVMe card and a 256gb NVMe card and the Windows installation failed in both cases. I then installed the official Raspberry M2 hat (I had another M2 hat but decided to try the official one) using the 256gb NVMe card and that failed. WOR-Flasher sets up the boot partition and a partition with the install.wim file on the NVMe card. As near as I can tell the problem arises when it is formatting and trying to install the wim file on a third partition. I have tried formatting the whole NVMe cards as ExFat on a PC before trying WOR-Flasher. That didn’t help. I do have Windows 11 installed on a USB SSD using WOR-Flasher and that works. I think there is a definite problem with Flasher when using NVMe. It looks to me like Flasher was developed primarily for SD cards. I suspect a problem with the script for DiskPart in the final stages. John

[schau80269]

WoR-Flasher is NOT at fault for your Win11 OS installation failures with Raspberry Pi 5 and NVMe SSD. There is a known issue with the Win11 inbox NVMe storage driver (stornvme.sys) not working with RPi5, so installations using stock (unmodified) OS installation bits will fail, and even if you somehow make it through the installation, the OS will likely fail during OOBE and never reach the desktop properly. WoR-Flasher simply gets badly tripped up by this issue.

To use WoR-Flasher to directly install Win11 into NVMe SSD, it is necessary to replace the stornvme driver residing in the OS installation files (boot.wim & install.wim) on the USB installation media. A version of stornvme driver v6 "50%" provided recently by developer digdoug2 on Discord works well with RPi5 and I've had multiple successful installations and stable OS operation with several different NVMe SSD brands and models attached via m.2 Hat.

Attached is a script I wrote that uses DISM to automate the replacement of stornvme.sys for boot.wim & install.wim, and optionally inject 3rd-party ARM64 device drivers (there are none currently for RPi5). Once the boot.wim & install.wim files are processed by this script, Win11 installation into NVMe SSD connected to RPi5 should work.

Inject_ARM64_Drivers_Replace_stornvme_Win11ARM64.zip

[Botspot]

This looks promising. @schau80269 If you are interested in getting this added to the wor-flasher for everyone, let me know!

[schau80269]

@Botspot Feel free to add stornvme driver replacement functionality to WoR-Flasher! Replacing the inbox stornvme driver is critical in getting Win11 ARM64 OS to install successfully for ARM SBCs such as Raspberry Pi 5 and Rockchip RK3588-based boards such as the Orange Pi 5 series. With the replacement stornvme driver in place, WoR-Flasher typically completes OS installation into NVMe SSD on RPi5 in less than 6 minutes, and subsequent OS bootups are trouble free. The ARM64 driver injections in my script are mostly for my Orange Pi 5 Plus. Pre-injected RK3588 ARM64 drivers don't seem to affect Raspberry Pi 5 installations. I also inject a ARM64 driver for Realtek USB-to-Ethernet adapters (1GbE & 2.5GbE) so RPi5 can have internet connectivity during the OOBE setup. The v6 "50%" stornvme driver provided by digdoug2 serves the RPi5 extremely well. I've had zero crashes. Unfortunately, it's different for my Orange Pi 5 Plus where there are still random DPC_Watchdog_Violation BSOD crashes with NVMe SSD, so Win11 ARM64 24H2 currently runs with NVMe SSDs on Raspberry Pi 5 better than with RK3588 SBCs.

[SeaDog58]

I’m not familiar with the download sources for the stornvme driver v6. I have searched but can’t find. Where can I find it? John

[schau80269]

stornvme v6 driver was posted to the "Windows on R" Discord server by digdoug2. Attached is a copy.

stornvme_v6.zip

[SeaDog58]

Thanks. I’m working a bit over my head…smile. Where is storahci driver? John

[schau80269]

storahci driver is not used for Raspberry Pi 5 with NVMe SSD, so no driver replacement is needed.

[SeaDog58]

Thank you. I was confused by your CMD file. I will try it out tomorrow.

[schau80269]

Here's a replacement storahci driver to keep the CMD script happy.

storahci.zip

[SeaDog58]

Thanks. I ran the CMD file without it and it complained a bit, but it did produce the modified intall.wim and boot.wim. Tomorrow I will try Flasher again. John