2

I always install new windows into any PC I buy or build - way back from XP, 7, 8, 10, and now 11. I bought a new Dell laptop and did the same one day after buying. I normally split the hard drive into partitions then I can iso-image the c-drive when I want, and I keep my normal files on the partitioned drive letter.

Anyway, a few attempts and it does not see then 512GB SSD, and it's the first time in 20 years I have had this issue.

I have also booted into troubleshooting to see the drives visible via command-pro, and the actual OS operating system HD is invisible in this method.

Dell has a fancy BIOS these days and I can't help but wonder if there's a fancy acronym setting in there somewhere that needs unchecking to make the main hard drive visible during Windows Installation.

Anyway, what is the best way to resolve this so I can proceed with installing?

enter image description here

enter image description here

enter image description here

Ramhound
  • 44,080
CaptainMacro
  • 61

3 Answers3

1

You need to manually load your Rapid Storage Driver or Serial ATA Driver for your hard drive to appear.

Step 1 - Download the driver specific to your Dell model laptop onto a USB https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-uk

Step 2 - Fire up your Windows 10 installation again and click on "Load Driver"

Step 3 - You will likely see many drivers if you have downloaded a general driver pack so you need to find the one that relates to your storage controller. This will be a RST driver or a Serial ATA driver or a RAID driver (I'm not sure what Dell use). Try loading each one individually until you find the one that makes your hard drive appear. If you're lucky you may only have one driver to choose from, otherwise you will have to go through the list one by one like in the following example.

enter image description here

Step 4 - proceed with the windows 10 installation as normal.

Mastaxx
  • 1,379
0

Solution: Under Storage switch from RAID to AHCI\NVME mode.

Detail: That DELL UEFI\BIOS often defaults to RAID which requires the Intel RST driver, as mentioned by @Mastaxx. There is no benefit to running RAID mode with a single drive, so I recommend switching to AHCI\NVME mode. It's faster and easier to complete the install.

HackSlash
  • 5,015
0

Yeah, this is a problem I had. It's a matter of the type of storage you are using. I have the same Inspiron, and they use RAID technology, which Windows does not support. This is why if you mount an OS image onto the drive, and boot off, it will continue bootlooping.

There are 2 options: The first option is, you can go to the BIOS, then on the sidebar click "Storage", then switch it from RAID Technology or something similar to NVMe/AHCI.

The second option is, load the RAID drivers when in Windows Setup. You can search for the RAID drivers as a zip, then extract it and select that folder. Then it should show up

Average PC
  • 1