Question: I’d like to use an NVMe drive paired with a PCIe adapter as main system disk.
Unfortunately, I have a mainboard (X79) whose BIOS does not support booting NVMe drives. I was wondering if I can install the system (either Windows or Linux) on the NVMe SSD, then install GRUB or another bootloader on a regular SATA drive, and use it to boot the NVMe drive.
It is a Fujitsu-Siemens D3128 mainboard.
Will it work?
Answer: Yes, it is doable. It requires manual partitioning though.
As long as the ESP (EFI System Partition) is created in a bootable drive, the OS partition(s) can be anywhere else.
For Linux, selecting the ESP and creating the required partitions can be done during the installation.
For Windows is the same. The installer will use the existing ESP and install in a different, user selected, drive.