x17 R1, Windows 11 freezes, cannot find boot media

I had 1 SSD of 512GB at first. Didn’t experience any crashes. Even after two 1TB SSDs in RAID 0, I didn’t experience any but, after adding two 2TB nvme4.0 ones, I have started getting crashes (RAID or no RAID). Reinstalled OS and drivers a billion times but, issue still persists.

Laptop started up fine for < 3 hrs but I stepped away with just the normal desktop showing (no lock or sleep) and while I was away it crashed to the Dell White Screen saying no Valid OS or Boot Device. Did the usual to fix: shut off, on (white screen again saying No Boot Device), shut off, on, runs Win11 Startup Diagnostics which I stop and back into the OS.

And FINALLY was able to grab a screenshot of the BSOD which vanishes within 2 seconds...

Seems to relate to either harddrive or mem issues. Great..... makes no sense as I can go "almost" a whole day without problems.

This is exactly what has been happening.. note the issue in RSTi in the BIOS..

Yeap.. the Raid0 failed as one stick was briefly not there.

Screenshot1 Screenshot2

During the Alienware loading screen right in the center it sometimes says "Abnormal UEFI Driver behaviour" then shows the white screen "Boot Media Not Found". Very random it seems.

Hi @Nikskywalker x17 R1 has two M.2 2280 slots. One slot can take up to PCIe4 and the other slot can take up to PCIe3. Consequently RAID0 can only be PCIe3. RAID0 always defaults to slowest speed of drive slot and drive with the least storage capacity. A single PCIe4 OS(C:) boot drive is more reliable and will outperform PCIe3 RAID0. Solved: x17 R1, RAID 0 questions - Dell Community  

Hi @Thudmeizer  your Windows 11 should be complaining. Please run Windows Reliability Monitor to create event timeline, to see if this problem is being reported as a Critical Event. Open Critical Event to see Microsoft's error code and description of the root cause of this problem. Use timeline to look back in time to see when this problem started, and if there is an obvious culprit. 

Please click on Event window's bottom link to capture image, to share image of Critical Event so that forum users can see what you see. Thank you. Do not share your private information in this public forum. 

I have a look at that.. thank you Crimson.

I am actually testing Safe Mode for Win11 and so far.. no issues... I am just leaving the screen alone in the main menu the occasionally looking over to see if I click on the Start button if it responds Or lock the screen and re-enter with my PIN. This morning I went in normally and almost within a min it froze. Seems the problem is getting worse in normal mode.. no idea why as I haven't installed anything unusual in the last few days that would cause this.

I will run your test scenario shortly once I see Safe Mode is stable just by idling in it.

The spec sheet for my device is showing that it is capable of holding 2 Gen4 SSDs. I also verified it by running DiskMark on separate disks and as RAID. My XPG S70 is yielding 6800MB/10800MB read speeds on non-RAID/RAID configs.

Still, it shouldn't affect the actual UEFI configs, should it?

Ok so ran in Safe Mode bypassing the usual Bitlocker Recovery Key and it never locked up or BSOD once.

Now what is interesting is I ran your Reliability Monitor (very useful seeing all the generated errors) and noted when most of the issues started occurring: it seems right now that its AWCC (Alienware Command Center) which is consistently crashing after its been installed but of course I have not ironed that as the major cause but after it was installed it comes up on the Critical Events all the time.

Hi @Thudmeizer it is very odd for motherboard to have its two M.2 slots with different PCIe NVMe capabilities. Although PCIe4 drives are backward compatible to give PCIe3 RAID0, many other applications will struggle to cope. This would explain OP observation: Dell White screen trying to run the troubleshooting OR it will simply say "Boot Media Not Found".

My personal experience of the Dell AWCC application is that it is rubbish and in dire need of being reimagined for Windows 10 and 11. 

Safe Mode just loads the bare minimum of OS applications, finding the conflict in normal mode is not easy. Check Disk continues to be good at finding and fixing OS(C:) file compatibility errors. Keep updating the Dell BIOS version seems essential when Dell Technical Support gets to know about how to fix these problems. 

Where are you seeing that two m.2 slots having different PCIe capabilities? Both SSTC m.2 sticks are the same - there should be no mixing especially for Raid-0.

I have now uninstalled AWCC so we'll see how we go.

I've already run DISM, SFC, and CHKDSK on this X17R1 a few times.. no issues or if they were they have been fixed.

After coming out of Safe Mode, it has been my experience for 30+ years that it can help "clean up" the system by clearing out extraneous data/garbage on the system so when it goes back into Normal Mode it runs more smoothly: this, so far, seems to be the case but before I removed AWCC it did lock up and hit F2 to go right into the BIOS one of the sticks was missing. I hit ESC to restart then, presto, it came back, and could boot once more. 

I had the same issue with my X17R1. Came with 1x OEM 2TB NVME SSD. No RAID. Reinstalled OS and drivers as you have. Same outcome. I couldn’t find a fix. I’ve just returned the machine for a full refund. IMO It wasn’t acceptable for a new machine to be locking up frequently and unable to boot. Are you also using Alienware/Dell supplied 2TB NVME SSD’s or another brand?

Yeah have the 2x2TB NVME m.2 sticks in Raid-0 in this new X17R1.. I am not remotely at the stage of returning as I got this beast stable for a week after first running in Safe Mode then in normal mode uninstalling AWCC. It then became fully stable.. no issues.. no freezing anywhere no matter what.

Then Dell asked me to reinstall AWCC and, yep.. the freezing of the Raid-0 causing the out-of-OS "Boot Media not found" or "Abnormal status reported by rapid storage technology UEFI driver" error where one of the sticks vanishes in the BIOS causing the RAID to show as failed but then I hit ESC to reset then back into the BIOS is all back again.

Anyway, these issues are being caused right in the OS via some driver. I am tracking it down again to ensure I get it back to when I had that week of 100% stability. The original fix of Safe Mode then uninstall AWCC in normal mode did not work but I investigated other odd errors re: the Intel UHD Graphic driver and re-installing those. Hibernate seems to work now (not that I tried it before but I hibernated the beast over night for the first time and it came out fine this morning.. so far.. stable).

If I did not have that one week of complete stability then I'd be questioning this device but, largely, apart from freezing when idle or in lock screen or random times, 95% of its daily use is stable for me to remain productive.

Ok update to this...

System is NOW, once more, stable: it survived overnight in a lock screen (no sleep enabled) without a single BSOD. I used WhoCrashed to determine via the MEMORY.DMP file what was causing it. It was NOT what I was expecting..

This was probably caused by the following module: igdkmdn64.sys (0xFFFFF8018E55A825)
Bugcheck code: 0x1000007E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000094, 0xFFFFF8018E55A825, 0xFFFFC28E335AE5C8, 0xFFFFC28E335ADDE0)
Error: SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M
file path: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\iigd_dch.inf_amd64_d8b665a6d822ace4\igdkmdn64.sys
product: Intel HD Graphics Drivers for Windows(R)

I have no idea how the Intel UHD Graphics Driver has anything to do with temp-killing the Raid while in the OS but that seemed to be the case. Basically, it tried to install the latest Intel UHD 30.x drivers but that caused the same BSOD above so I went into Device Manager and selected the UHD driver, selected Uninstall the Driver + delete the driver files then removed the device itself entirely (which causes the screen to flash then go into defaults). I then rebooted, and it eventually auto-grabbed the 27.x while I sat there. Since then.. no problems. No idea why it had problems with 30.x that seemed to be far newer but since this is Win11+X17R1 perhaps it was not vetted yet.

It did have what could have been a hiccup where it damaged a startup file causing the OS to stop booting just before the log in screen (this occurred after a prolonged BSOD on that Intel UHD driver) but, eventually, it auto-copied a backup on a 3rd boot attempt and the OS booted fine. Strange.