wdf01000.sys BSOD on modern laptop

[Ludmilla]

Thanks to this thread I finally got Windows 8.1 proper (not PE) booting up successfully on my modern laptop using both SATA and NVMe SSDs in USB3 enclosures using Win2Go through Rufus. Works great although obviously can't have GPU drivers and sound would probably be a tough ask but I anyway use an external audio dongle so that's not an issue. HOWEVER, it seems to just randomly BSOD with the wdf01000.sys file and for the life of me I can't figure out what is wrong. The only other indicator of any kind of hardware issue is that if I open CrystalDiskInfo, one of the two internal NVMe SSDs shows that is completely dead which it is not and it works fine and delivers perfect SMART data to any other OS. These issues are non-existent in WinPE images. It seems that Windows 8.1 and 10 1511-1703 (all non-PE of course) are cursed on Ryzen as I've also had issues when trying to run modded Win10 1511 off external media on my desktop although the desktop is generally more compatible with 8.1 ISOs so it's not as bad as the laptop situation. The common denominator for the old Win10 build issues and the Win8.1 issue this post is about is that it is always a an IRQL not less or equal BSOD. I am guessing it may be some platform weirdness of simply some older generic Windows drivers not playing well with the not exactly fully intel-compatible instruction support on Ryzen. I know 8.1 also has problems on 8th gen Intel chips unless you use custom PE images, and of course 8PE on my current laptop just throws a BSOD. Anyone know what is going on with Win8.1 non-PE and/or the 8PE problem?

Laptop specs:

Asus FA507RE
32GB DDR5-4800
RTX3050Ti
Ryzen 7 6800H
Samsung 9801TB + 970 EVO 2TB (internal Win10 and storage space respectively)

Desktop:

HP TG01-023W
32GB DDR4-2667
GTX1650 Super
Ryzen 5 3600
Samsung 980 1TB (Internal Win10) + Crucial 2TB SATA of some kind in an enclosure (external storage, internal SATA ports are messed up)

[K4sum1]

OEM PC's are just cursed. Mobile Ryzen just does not have an iGPU driver for any part worth using. Probably just sell both, build your own PC, and get P15G2 for laptop.

Also 8.1 NVMe driver does not support S.M.A.R.T., so that's why it doesn't show.

[Ludmilla]

The PC will be going anyway sometime in the next year or two (assuming it doesn't totally go out beyond economical repair beforehand, I've kludged it to death and it still has some problems) and I will probably consult this or a similar forum for board selection. As for the laptop, that thing does pretty nice with my daily OS (Win10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 with anti-telemetry measures enacted) and I like CPU and GPU combo in it so I will probably use it until it gets too old or falls apart beyond repair and will probably get a Framework laptop cause I have a tendency to rapidly wear out USB ports, lol. As for Win8.1, I use that purely as an offline nostalgia OS and don't care much about any use case that would need working drivers although it was nice having modded UHD630 and native GTX1050 drivers on my old GP72-7RD that I scrapped due to a memory controller problem (unstable with dual-rank memory) and severe damage it sustained when I fainted while carrying it and it took a 4 foot fall to concrete. Strange thing about the S.M.A.R.T thing is that it reads the other internal SSD and the external one that 8.1 is on just fine but the 970 EVO lol no. May consider an AMD thinkpad or whatever super-powerful pre 6th gen Intel based ThinkPads with removable batteries exist as a secondary laptop if I ever wanna build a dream "nostalgiabook" with multiple pre-10 Windows installs on it.

I wish there was some technical explanation out there for this cause I'd love to know down to the assembly level what is going on but kinda suck too much at dynamic analysis (and know way too little about drivers and low level kernel stuff) to try and debug a .sys file of all things haha. Hopefully this version of 8.1 from here will run on my desktop, probably gonna try that when I'm not busy and if it works then this junk quality HP thing will be saved even after retired just for 8.1 compatibility.

[K4sum1]

The PC will be going anyway sometime in the next year or two (assuming it doesn't totally go out beyond economical repair beforehand, I've kludged it to death and it still has some problems) and I will probably consult this or a similar forum for board selection.

Pretty sure you could just get a new case, board (any MSI AM4), and PSU (80+ gold whatever) and it should just work.

Also since the other NVMe is external, I think it just uses UASP drivers, which do support S.M.A.R.T.

For everything else, I guess you've figured that out. Aside from the technical explanation, which idk if anyone outside of Microsoft or some driver team or perhaps ReactOS would know.