ASUS ROG G615LW Will Not Boot to a Cloned Drive.

[cscooper2000]

I cannot be the only one who moves my SSD into every new laptop I purchase.  My SSD has been in ASUS, HP and Lenovo machines without issue.  And now I've cloned it again to move it into my new (probably not mine for long) ASUS ROG G615LW.  Nope!  I've messed with VMD (off) because my drive was never set up that way to begin with.  My clone boots up fine the first several times while I install drivers and restart.  About the time I get to the GPU and/or Sound Card or the Trackpad the computer will BSOD x0225.  Something about missing hardware device.  I've spent 2 weeks with 2 different, brand new machines, and NOTHING I've tried has made any actual progress.  The issue is 100% repeatable; 100% of the time.

Turns out, I think, it's not a driver matter, but rather a matter of time, anywhere from 20 minutes to 1 hour.  In that time I can restart.  I can shut off and power on again.  But after some point we'll be right back to the BSOD.

******!  I REALLY want to love this machine.  I've heard SO much good about it.  Why can't it stay solid for more than an hour???

Things I've tried (and I'm probably forgetting some):
- Clone Windows 11 Pro.  Place it in the new machine.  Install proper drivers straight from ASUS.  Eventual BSOD.
- Attempt all the BCD and Bootedit tricks from over 10 different websites (one at a time).  Still won't boot.
- Clone Windows 11 Pro.  Play with secure boot on/off.  Play with FastBoot on/off.  Again, 30 minutes or so and I'm getting BSOD on reboot.
- INSTALL Brand new Windows 11 from MS Creation Meida USB (because perhaps the old boot partitions are incorrect sizes for Windows 11?  A wild stab in the dark).  Now clone ONLY the C: partition (Windows 11 Pro).  It works again!  Install ASUS drivers.  BSOD on reboot after around 20-60 minutes.
- INSTALL Brand new Windows 11 from MS Creation Media USB.  NO CLONE this time (though I would prefer to not start over with years of programs and files).  Install all ASUS drivers.  After 20-60 minutes a reboot leads to BSOD.
- Clone my previous Windows 11 Pro, but this time expanding the 200Mb partition to 500Mb (I don't know.  Chat thought that would be a great idea).  Place the drive in the new machine.  Works like a champ!  ...for 20-60 minutes.  But after several successful reboots (the same as all above), we ultimately return to the BSOD on boot.
- What is going on?!
- On the first machine I thought maybe it was a bad BIOS update (because yes, I did).  But after sending that back and getting the second unit it is also exhibiting EXACTLY the same behavior (without the latest 9/28 BIOS).

My latest trick was to enabled/disabled one setting at a time in UEFI (except leaving VMD always off).  Nothing made any  difference until I changed to dGPU only. 

... And now I have a brick!  I cannot get back into BIOS/UEFI and, of course it won't boot.  We don't even make it to "For those who dare!"

Any ideas?  I contacted ASUS support last week.  They, of course, were stumped.  Said they'd pass it up to the senior techs.  And 3 business days later, I've heard nothing.

ASUS, if we wanted a laptop we can't modify we would have bought an Apple.  I thought this was a SERIOUS laptop (i.e. modify everything!)  😉  

Is this the beginning of the end of a long and wonderful relationship?

EDIT:  OK... I get it.  ASUS ROG forums are now a graveyard.  😔  After 2.5 weeks of messing around with this, I finally was able to get back into BIOS thanks to another earlier thread about simply removing both SSDs from the machine, which forces the machine to boot into BIOS.  I turned off the dGPU only setting (which really shouldn't be there in the first place, since it only bricks the machine).  At that point I cloned the factory SSD (just in case I ultimately have to send this machine back), and I'm starting from scratch on fresh Windows Home.  I've upgraded the machine to Windows 11 Pro, and it'll take a week or more to get every program and setting back to feeling 90% like home.  

After all this, I believe that this machine simply DOES NOT WORK with any setup outside of VMD (on), which kinda sucks if you have any recent Samsung drives (EVO 970), because Samsung does not have VMD-compatible drivers, and this laptop will not work optimally.  There are still some issues I'm working through.  As I set up my laptop I had both the C (clone of factory SSD) and D (clone of my previous laptop's D working files) in the machine.  Everything worked all through initial setup, Upgrades from Armory Crate, Upgrade to Windows 11 Pro, installing a few of the first programs (Chrome, Davinci Resolve, VS Code).

At the point that I felt the system was stable enough, I decided to cut over to the new machine fulltime.  So I went back to my Lenovo and did one final clone of my D drive (with newer working files) and put it back into this ASUS Strix machine.  And... The D drive "cannot be access or may be corrupt"...  Yes, anything is possible, however I don't think the D drive is corrupt.  I suspect something about the new ASUS machine's wonky BIOS/settings/Armory Crate/VMD, etc.  One thing I noticed is that, while I had turned off Bitlocker during all cloning activities, both the C drive and the "corrupt" D drive both say "Bitlocker On".  Perhaps I should have turned off "Windows Encryption" before upgrading to Windows Pro?  Perhaps I should have turned off "Bitlocker" before taking the D drive out to swap it with my newer clone?  

If you've read this far.  Thank you.  If it's helped you (either avoid purchasing the ROG Strix 2025 or fix yours), you're welcome.  If you have any answers for me, I'm all ears and grateful.

NOTE:  I do not think this is a bad machine if you will be using it as is, with Windows 11 Home on the factory SSD.  But if you have a past, and you want to actually use your laptop in a realistic way, this laptop really blows.