Windows 11 24H2: Crashes on PCs equipped with SSDs without DRAM cache according to WD 101 comments
Image: Microsoft
According to the Windows Latest platform, the new Windows 11 24H2 may crash with a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) if certain Western Digital SSDs are installed. Microsoft has not yet officially confirmed this information.
What causes crashes?
The crashes are believed to be caused by problems with the RAID controller and storage drivers, which are reported in the Windows event log with errors (stornvme or controller error on RaidPort 1 or 2). It doesn’t matter if an existing Windows 11 installation was updated to 24H2 or if the system was recently configured.
The host memory buffer (HMB) requested by SSDs causes the crash, with Western Digital’s WD_Black SN770 and WD Blue SN580 each requesting 200MB – both have no DRAM cache and therefore use the HMB feature. While Windows 11 23H2 had allocated a maximum of 64 MB of HMB, version 24H2 releases the entire 200 MB, which would lead to a BSOD with the Critical Process Died error.
There is a workaround
If a new DWORD (32-bit) with the name HMBAllocationPolicy with the value 0 is created in the registry in the path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlStorPort, host buffer allocation is disabled. This prevents BSODs, but this registry entry may affect drive performance because the HMB no longer replaces the missing DRAM cache.
outlook
According to Windows Latest, Microsoft is aware of the issue and is working with WD to stop the deployment of Windows 11 24H2 on affected hardware. As soon as Microsoft has found and distributed a solution to the problem, the registry entry must be deleted again to avoid possible loss of drive performance.
Topics: Operating Systems Microsoft NVMe Flash Storage Western Digital SSD Storage Windows Windows 11 Source: Windows Latest
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