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I install with bootcamp to a partition on the internal drive. after install and a few reboots to makesure everything is working I clone the Windows partition to my external disk with winclone. and delete the internal install of windows. I done this on 3 machines and never had a issue. I also use winclone to back up my windows install in case I screw something up while using windows. To me winclone is necessary if you use windows on a mac.
 
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I install with bootcamp to a partition on the internal drive. after install and a few reboots to makesure everything is working I clone the Windows partition to my external disk with winclone. and delete the internal install of windows. I done this on 3 machines and never had a issue. I also use winclone to back up my windows install in case I screw something up while using windows. To me winclone is necessary if you use windows on a mac.

Many people, self included, have used this method. You can just easily do with the now EOL tool, iPartition, and not have to pay Winclone licensing, but I digress.

The point of this thread is specific to TB3 interfaces with m.2 (PCI-E) SSDs. If your installs match our specification a number of us would be very appreciative regarding any insight you can provide about 1.) the enclosure you used 2.) the drive you used and 3.) any post install / setup you did ensure a smooth boot with the Windows PCI-E driver.

If your experience does not match this requirement, again, it's great to hear you are having success, as all of us are too, but it does not help address the specific issue we are facing.
 
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Pitching in here. I've tried this on my Samsung X5 and have no success. I end up with INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE blue screen. My google skills suggested this was a driver issue for thunderbolt. I was able to get past this by moving the m.2 drive to a type-c usb (non thunderbolt) m.2 reader. Then I installed bootcamp driver. However, bootcamp driver install missed a bunch of crap. So I went into device manager and selected all that had exclamation mark and pointed it to the $WINPEDRIVER$ from bootcamp drivers to auto install. It eventually installed thunderbolt. When I put the drive into the X5, I no longer get the INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE, but after the boot up screen, I just see it restart. On second try, it goes into Automatic Windows Repair. Which goes nowhere.
 
I've even been able to successfully load the driver in WinPE and subsequently access the drive using diskpart and bcdboot.

But yeah, exact same experience here once you got the driver installed, @kaiyoti ... the most frustrating part is I've been unable to collect any diagnostic data whatsoever regarding root cause. I can only speculate there is something going on here related to the driver.
 
Passing on my experience, running Windows 10 on a Samsung X5 on a 2017 iMac. After a year or more of on and off experimention, the only sure-fire, and easy, method I’ve been able find that is to use the latest WinToUsb. The previous version did not support Thunderbolt but now it does.

- Download BC drivers using BC assistant
- Install Windows in small boot camp installation
- Run WinToUsb to install Windows to the X5
- Boot into external to confirm all runs well
- Install BC drivers
- Delete the boot camp partition

Yeah in the past I could load Windows 7 onto a Thunderbolt 1 drive without any third party utilities. None of those procedures work anymore with Win10. Many hours and lots of frustration, not even Winclone worked for me, or the previous WinToUsb. But this new version of WinToUSB with Thunderbolt support is effortles.
 
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I'm stuck on step four here, not getting it to boot properly. I get the blue windows logo and some spinning dots, then the dots disappear and nothing happens... Any ideas?

I'm on a 27" imac 20,1, using an OWC Envoy express enclosures with a WD SN550 drive, if that makes a difference
 
The OWC Envoy Express with an OWC Aura P12 SSD works for me with 21.5" mid-2011 iMac. I used Winclone to clone a sysprep'd install of Windows 10 from the internal hard drive to the NVMe SSD.

Do you have the Windows 10 drivers for the Envoy Express in your Windows 10 installation?

I used bcdboot to move the EFI stuff to the internal hard drive.

You could also try using Refind or Open Core.

Also disabling Fast Boot can help with problems booting off an external SSD.
 
Passing on my experience, running Windows 10 on a Samsung X5 on a 2017 iMac. After a year or more of on and off experimention, the only sure-fire, and easy, method I’ve been able find that is to use the latest WinToUsb. The previous version did not support Thunderbolt but now it does.

- Download BC drivers using BC assistant
- Install Windows in small boot camp installation
- Run WinToUsb to install Windows to the X5
- Boot into external to confirm all runs well
- Install BC drivers
- Delete the boot camp partition

Yeah in the past I could load Windows 7 onto a Thunderbolt 1 drive without any third party utilities. None of those procedures work anymore with Win10. Many hours and lots of frustration, not even Winclone worked for me, or the previous WinToUsb. But this new version of WinToUSB with Thunderbolt support is effortles.

After faffing around for ages this solution worked really well for me, thank you.

HOWEVER my drivers are a bit messed up. Audio doesn't work, my bluetooth doesn't show up (but mouse / keyboard work!) - which means my mouse wont scroll. When I try to re-install or repair BootCamp it says: "bootcamp this version of bootcamp is not intended for this computer model".

Anyone else come across this? Any thoughts?
 
After faffing around for ages this solution worked really well for me, thank you.

HOWEVER my drivers are a bit messed up. Audio doesn't work, my bluetooth doesn't show up (but mouse / keyboard work!) - which means my mouse wont scroll. When I try to re-install or repair BootCamp it says: "bootcamp this version of bootcamp is not intended for this computer model".

Anyone else come across this? Any thoughts?
For missing drivers try to install them manually from device manager. Each device lacking a driver, point it to the BC folder with search sub folders enabled.
 
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