Platform

[TimBoudreau]

I recently installed a 1Tb Intel SSD 660p NVMe drive in my circa-2015 Spectre x360.  The BIOS does not recognize the drive whatsoever when booting.  However I can boot the OS on it using a USB stick with the rEFInd bootloader on it - the drive works fine, and the problem is simply that either the EFI partition is not recognized correctly, or the NVMe device is not scanned at all during power-on.  I even tried clobbering the new drive's partition table with the partition table from the original m2 disk, and booting, to see if it was some peculiarity of the CHS layout of the original.  No change in behavior.

I notice there is a BIOS update available for this machine, which perhaps would solve this problem - but it is only available as a Windows .exe.  I do not run Windows, and do not have any of the original recovery partitions.  I do, however, have the HP utilities in my USB stick's EFI partition, and could use those to install the BIOS update.  I have tried unzip, 7zip and unrar to see if the bios update was extractable from the Windows download, but it was not.

So, questions:
 - Is the bios update likely to solve the issue of large NVMe disks not being recognized?
 - Is there some way to download a platform independent BIOS update, or a way I have not tried to extract it from the Windows download, in order to use the UEFI bios update utility?

[Huffer]

You seem to be technically minded so I am sure you understand that we need the full model number to answer. There are some models not compatible with NVME M.2 SSDs and a BIOS upgrade will not help. There is no case where a BIOS upgrade will allow use of an NVME M.2 which could not be used before the update. There are also some particular compatibility issues with certain NVME M.2 disks and Intel models have been the source of some of those problems. In those cases a BIOS update will maybe help but its a long shot. Fairly common on 6th gen Intel Core processor models less common on 7th gen and unheard of on 8th gen models. The fact that you can boot to the NVME using a bootloader on a usb stick makes me think yours may be a compatibility issue. 

So please provide the Model or Product number. There are a bunch of Spectre x360 models. 

[TimBoudreau]

Here is the relevant output from dmidecode on Linux:

BIOS Information
Vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
Version: F.22
Release Date: 07/16/2015
Address: 0xF0000
Runtime Size: 64 kB
ROM Size: 6144 kB
Characteristics:
PCI is supported
BIOS is upgradeable
BIOS shadowing is allowed
Boot from CD is supported
Selectable boot is supported
EDD is supported
5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
Serial services are supported (int 14h)
Printer services are supported (int 17h)
ACPI is supported
USB legacy is supported
Smart battery is supported
BIOS boot specification is supported
Function key-initiated network boot is supported
Targeted content distribution is supported
UEFI is supported
BIOS Revision: 15.34
Firmware Revision: 58.57

Handle 0x0001, DMI type 1, 27 bytes
System Information
Manufacturer: HP
Product Name: HP Spectre x360 Convertible
Version:
Serial Number: 5CD5300WN2
UUID: 35444335-3033-5730-4e32-325730334435
Wake-up Type: Power Switch
SKU Number: N5R93UA#ABA
Family: 103C_5335KV G=N L=CON B=HP S=SPT

I am also noticing as of Linux Kernel 5.2 problems with using the sound card, which is now detected as an i2c sound card rather than HD Audio - likely also a bios/acpi issue I'm hoping an update would clear up.

To be clear, I have absolutely no way of running Windows on this machine, but I do have the original EFI bios update utility installed in my EFI partition, and could use that to install an OS-independent update, so I am very specifically looking for a BIOS update download of that sort (none seems to be available, but perhaps it could be extracted from the Windows exe?).  But it would be good to know if it is likely to solve either the NVMe or audio problems before attempting it.

[Huffer]

Here is the Service Manual:

Manual

PCIe/NVME M.2 SSDs are supported but the ones that would have been used at the time it was made are older generation like the Samsung PM951 and similar. BIOS can be flashed from UEFI environment. You need to have an HP Partition and install the actual BIOS from a thumb drive which you seem to understand. 

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/swdetails/hp-spectre-13-4100-x360-convertible-pc/84...

You can download the BIOS .exe and start it on another Windows computer and it gives you these options:

BIOS options

So the .exe can actually directly flash the BIOS from Windows or alternately make a flash drive that has the BIOS .bin on it which can be used to upgrade BIOS from the UEFI environment or make a recovery flash drive that I think can be used to flash the BIOS from its own boot environment. I always flash the BIOS from UEFI as I trust it more than a flash from within Windows. 

As to whether a BIOS flash will cure the NVME and audio issue...doubtful but not impossible and this BIOS flash is highly recommended by HP in any event. 

Post back with any more questions and please accept as solution if this is the info you needed.