Western Digital users report BlueScreens on Windows 11 24H2 (workaround)

Reports suggest that some Wester Digital users have problems with Bluescreens on devices with Windows 11 version 24H2.

Microsoft has not acknowledged the issue yet, but reports from the official Western Digital forum suggest that there is indeed an issue.

The post Windows 24H2 + WD = blue screens has 52 replies at the time of writing. It states that “multiple users are having issues with constant blue screens since updating to Windows 24H2”.

Multiple storage devices and firmware versions appear affected. To name the two mentioned the most:

• WD SN770
• WD SN580

The Event Viewer shows two related errors:

• stornvme (this is the system-supplied storage miniport driver.
• The driver detected a controller error on \Device\RaidPort1 or 2.

Some users rolled back to Windows 11 version 23H2 stating that this has resolved the issue.

Workaround for BlueScreen issues

Note that the workaround requires editing of the Registry. It is recommended to create a system backup, for instance using Paragon Backup & Recovery Free, before making changes to the system.

1. Open Start.
2. Type regedit.exe
3. Select Registry Editor.
4. Confirm the security prompt.
5. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorPort.
6. Right-click on HMBAllocationPolicy and set the value to 0.
7. If HMBAllocationPolicy does not exist, right-click on StorPort and select New > Dword (32-bit) Value.
8. Restart the PC.

This should fix the BlueScreens. Some users have reported performance issues after the reboot. Some have set that setting the value to 2 improved the performance on their devices.

The policy supports the following values:

• 0 — HMB is disabled.
• 1 — HMB is set to 8 MB buffer.
• 2 — HMB is set to 64 MB buffer.
• 3 — firmware controlled buffer size.

You may need to play around with these values to see which works best on your end.

Which hard drives do you use in your PCs? Do you have a Western Digital drive and are affected by the issue? Feel free to leave a comment down below. (via Deskmodder)