You’re not alone. Windows 11 24H2 is causing some PCs to crash with BSOD (critical process has died). I’m told Microsoft is aware of this and is planning to pause this year’s biggest upgrade on certain configurations.

Reliable sources have informed Windows Latest that Microsoft is reportedly aware of an issue where a small number of devices with certain SSDs from Western Digital could run into Blue Screen of Death errors.

While Microsoft hasn’t officially acknowledged the reports yet, this issue happens when you upgrade your device to Windows 11 24H2 via Windows Update. I’m told Microsoft is also planning to pause Windows 11 2024 Update on affected hardware, so you won’t see the update on your device via Windows Update or Media Creation Tool.

What causes WD to crash with Windows 11 BSOD?

In a community thread, multiple people have reported seeing Blue Screen of Death (BSODs) after installing Windows 11 24H2.

Windows Latest understands that Windows 11 24H2’s BSODs are related to storage drivers and RAID controller, and you might see these errors in the event viewer logs if you’re affected:

• stornvme – NVMe storage drivers.
• The driver detected a controller error on DeviceRaidPort1 or 2 – This seems to point to the RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) controller, which is responsible for managing multiple hard drives or SSDs as a single storage unit.

“This happened to me on a brand new pre-built I bought and returned from CyberPowerPC. It had a 2TB WD Blue SN580 Series (PCIe Gen4) NVMe M.2 SSD and kept failing with BSOD (critical process has died),” one of the affected users noted in a Feedback Hub. “I re-installed windows fresh and re-seated the SSD but it didn’t resolve the issue. I just returned it and now I’m planning to build my own PC.

For those unaware, WD SN770 requests 200MB HMB (host memory buffer). Windows 11 23H2 only granted 64MB and no issue. However, Windows 11 24H2 grants full 200MB and causes BSOD with error “critical process died”.

If you turn off HMB by setting registry “HMBAllocationPolicy = 0” to mitigate the problem, but that’s shut off HMB for all SSDs.

Another WD SN580, which has the same 200MB HMB, has the same issue.

The good news is Windows Latest’s sources have confirmed Microsoft is aware of the reports, and is working with WD to block the affected hardware from receiving the Windows 11 24H2 update.

How to fix Windows 11 24H2 BSOD “Critical process has died”

1. Open Registry Editor, navigate to the following path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesstornvmeParametersDevice
2. If you don’t already see an entry for HMBAllocationPolicy under the Device key, you’ll need to create it.
3. Right-click in the right-hand pane, select New → DWORD (32-bit) Value.
4. Name the new value HMBAllocationPolicy.
5. Set the HMBAllocationPolicy Value to 0:
6. Double-click the newly created HMBAllocationPolicy value. Set its value data to 0 and click OK.
7. Setting this to 0 disables the Host Memory Buffer allocation, which fixes BOSds, but it could affect performance of your drive.
8. Restart your PC.

Windows Latest expects Microsoft to officially acknowledge these reports in the coming hours.

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