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The complaint here seems a little misguided. The AHCI / RAID switch the author is describing is only relevant to drive controllers which support SATA disks - A

The complaint here seems a little misguided. The AHCI / RAID switch the author is describing is only relevant to drive controllers which support SATA disks - AHCI is the protocol that's used to interact with a SATA controller. This switch has no effect on NVMe drives, and never has; the fact that the BIOS control for it even mentioned NVMe is odd. The "RST storage driver" (i.e. Intel Rapid Storage Technology) is only required for systems which support SATA RAID using an Intel integrated RAID controller. It is not required to use NVMe devices. I wouldn't expect Dell to provide this driver for systems which don't use SATA disks, since it wouldn't do anything. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if there were some weird trick required to perform a clean install of Windows on these machines. But I don't think the author has identified it correctly, and I find their theory that this is a deliberate effort to "control the user experience" unconvincing.

trinsic2 2y ago
You can switch into ACHI mode for NVME drives. The point is you cannot install windows clean without either having the RST driver, if your storage device is set to a RAID configuration in the BIOS, or switching into AHCI mode which my article describes. Since the Dell Laptop model I described did not have an option to switch from RAID into ACHI I was unable to install windows clean without the RST Driver. And that driver is not included on Dell's Website. Please tell me where this is misguided..
- Hizonner 2y ago
  I'm a bit lost in all this, except for kind of thinking that it shows X86 is a giant mess. First, doesn't Windows knows how to use NVME drives as NVME drives, without going through some weird SATA compatibility layer? Second, if I'm reading you right, Windows also has bundled drivers for RST. It's just that the installer doesn't. Is that right? Are you saying that the Windows installer doesn't know how to use storage interfaces that the final installed Windows system would know how to use, and furthermore that those include storage interfaces that might be used for the boot drive? So in order to install, you have to get an RST driver and somehow load it into the installer, but after that the system will work? Because that sounds like a Windows problem more than a BIOS problem. You're installing your OS on reasonably vanilla storage[^1]. Why would you expect to have to download a driver from Dell at all? [^1]: Sort of vanilla. I don't know about this "RST" nonsense and am suspicious of anything that might make it hard to move a drive, or indeed an entire RAID array, to another computer or controller intact.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - wmf 2y ago
    Are you saying that the Windows installer doesn't know how to use storage interfaces that the final installed Windows system would know how to use, and furthermore that those include storage interfaces that might be used for the boot drive? So in order to install, you have to get an RST driver and somehow load it into the installer, but after that the system will work? After reading the Dell documentation... yeah, that's exactly the situation. A laptop only has one drive BTW.
- saxonww 2y ago
  IDK about misguided, but I just went to the Dell website, went to support, looked up the Inspiron 16 Plus model 7640, and promptly found an Intel RST driver [0]. I am not disputing your experience at all, but it is weird to me that we'd need an RST driver to install Windows with an NVMe device; RST is a SATA/AHCI RAID tech, and while it does also do something with the 'optane memory' accelerators that Intel used to sell, I wouldn't have expected it to also make NVMe drives visible to the installer. My own experience is not current at this point, though. [0] https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=dcxgg&oscode=w2021&productcode=inspiron-16-7640-laptop https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetai...
  - aspenmayer 2y ago
    I was also able to find that driver and posted it in another thread. I can fully believe that it wasn't available when OP searched for it, but maybe they just didn't find it due to Dell's support site being somewhat difficult to navigate for people who aren't used to troubleshooting Dell computers and especially clean installing or dual booting them. One workaround is to install in AHCI mode and then use the safe mode method to switch the storage mode out from under Windows, install missing drivers for the desired boot mode under safe mode if they aren't installed automatically by Windows, then reboot to exit safe mode. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/22631-enable-ahci-windows-8-windows-10-after-installation.html https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/22631-enable-ahci-window... https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/15006-attn-ssd-owners-enabling-ahci-mode-after-windows-10-installation.html https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/15006-attn-ssd-ow... However, OP doesn't seem to have the option to switch to anything other than RST, which could be due to BIOS settings and/or Windows settings, as well as flags on your partitions that cause Windows to boot in read only mode. You might need to toggle some settings for legacy/uefi compatibility mode, reset BIOS/EFI to (un optimized for Windows 8/10/11) default settings, disable secure boot temporarily, etc to let the EFI allow you to toggle the boot mode on some Dell BIOSes, however, especially in OP's case where they appear to not have any alternate drive modes besides RST in BIOS/EFI. In especially bad cases, you might even need to update the BIOS to enable these modes and/or wipe the EFI partitions and possibly the entire boot drive, as sometimes the BIOS/EFI is inserting itself in the boot process via "dirty bits" and/or Fast Startup mode. https://superuser.com/questions/1554458/how-does-windows-locking-down-the-drive-for-fast-startup-work https://superuser.com/questions/1554458/how-does-windows-loc...
emn13 2y ago
Presumably the author really is missing a driver; I doubt he'd have missed being able to install without it. If he really does need such a driver; then the exact name of it or the details of Dell's BIOS options and whether they help sound fairly incidental to the underlying story. Your criticism may be reasonable; but does it really cut at the heart of the issue? Also; some of these options are occasionally oddly named, so let's not ignore the possibility that the article's author is right on this.
- duskwuff 2y ago
  > Your criticism may be reasonable; but does it really cut at the heart of the issue? The article hardly provides any support for its "closed ecosystems" thesis beyond this anecdote. Whatever the situation is on this hardware (and wmf's sibling comment points out that there might indeed be something odd going on), it seems far more likely that it's the result of sloppy engineering by Dell and/or Microsoft, rather than a deliberate plan to restrict user choice (or something).
  - trinsic2 2y ago
    I'm the OP, yes I did not provide much evidence in that specific article, and I'm getting to the point, based on responses that there might be some irregularities between search methods for model specific drivers, so Im willing to admit I might be wrong about this, but the security features that are included in consumer hardware BIOS these days and the way OEM manufactures are designing OEM products leads me to believe that we are moving in a direction that is more closed and locked down, which its not good for the enthusiast community and in the long term, bad for society. We can even see this in other system build vendors ASUS. I have published other articles [0] related to what I believe a slow move towards locked down consumer hardware. [0]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/categories/deceptivetechnology/ https://www.scottrlarson.com/categories/deceptivetechnology/
wmf 2y ago
I think there is a newer version of RST based on NVMe and it has the same problem: if the system is in RST mode the SSDs aren't visible. Dell even has a recent article about this exact problem: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000188116/intel-11th-generation-processors-no-drives-can-be-found-during-windows-10-installation https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000188116/intel-11t...
- aspenmayer 2y ago
  Nice spot for that article. I'm not sure what to make of OP's issues tbh, as I was able to find the RST driver for their model here: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=dcxgg&oscode=w2021&productcode=inspiron-16-7640-laptop https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetai... via https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/inspiron-16-7640-laptop/drivers https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/prod... Also, you can reboot into safe mode on Windows 10/11 and even 8/8.1, and before it reaches Windows initialization, enter the BIOS/EFI, toggle the AHCI/RAID/RST mode flag, save and exit BIOS/EFI, continue booting Windows to safe mode, install drivers if they aren't automatically installed by Windows, then reboot to exit safe mode. Apparently safe mode re-initializes the HAL similarly to the first install reboot OOBE mode, but normally HAL doesn't like you doing this in normal boot mode. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/22631-enable-ahci-windows-8-windows-10-after-installation.html https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/22631-enable-ahci-window... https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/15006-attn-ssd-owners-enabling-ahci-mode-after-windows-10-installation.html https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/15006-attn-ssd-ow...
  - wmf 2y ago
    enter the BIOS/EFI, toggle the AHCI/RAID/RST mode flag He said (with screenshots) that flag doesn't exist. Maybe he didn't look hard enough for the flag and didn't look hard enough for the driver though. I got a "I don't want to fix my laptop; I want to complain" vibe from the blog post.
    - aspenmayer 2y ago

trinsic2 2y ago

You can switch into ACHI mode for NVME drives. The point is you cannot install windows clean without either having the RST driver, if your storage device is set to a RAID configuration in the BIOS, or switching into AHCI mode which my article describes. Since the Dell Laptop model I described did not have an option to switch from RAID into ACHI I was unable to install windows clean without the RST Driver. And that driver is not included on Dell's Website. Please tell me where this is misguided..

Hizonner 2y ago
I'm a bit lost in all this, except for kind of thinking that it shows X86 is a giant mess. First, doesn't Windows knows how to use NVME drives as NVME drives, without going through some weird SATA compatibility layer? Second, if I'm reading you right, Windows also has bundled drivers for RST. It's just that the installer doesn't. Is that right? Are you saying that the Windows installer doesn't know how to use storage interfaces that the final installed Windows system would know how to use, and furthermore that those include storage interfaces that might be used for the boot drive? So in order to install, you have to get an RST driver and somehow load it into the installer, but after that the system will work? Because that sounds like a Windows problem more than a BIOS problem. You're installing your OS on reasonably vanilla storage[^1]. Why would you expect to have to download a driver from Dell at all? [^1]: Sort of vanilla. I don't know about this "RST" nonsense and am suspicious of anything that might make it hard to move a drive, or indeed an entire RAID array, to another computer or controller intact.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- wmf 2y ago
  Are you saying that the Windows installer doesn't know how to use storage interfaces that the final installed Windows system would know how to use, and furthermore that those include storage interfaces that might be used for the boot drive? So in order to install, you have to get an RST driver and somehow load it into the installer, but after that the system will work? After reading the Dell documentation... yeah, that's exactly the situation. A laptop only has one drive BTW.
saxonww 2y ago
IDK about misguided, but I just went to the Dell website, went to support, looked up the Inspiron 16 Plus model 7640, and promptly found an Intel RST driver [0]. I am not disputing your experience at all, but it is weird to me that we'd need an RST driver to install Windows with an NVMe device; RST is a SATA/AHCI RAID tech, and while it does also do something with the 'optane memory' accelerators that Intel used to sell, I wouldn't have expected it to also make NVMe drives visible to the installer. My own experience is not current at this point, though. [0] https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=dcxgg&oscode=w2021&productcode=inspiron-16-7640-laptop https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetai...
- aspenmayer 2y ago
  I was also able to find that driver and posted it in another thread. I can fully believe that it wasn't available when OP searched for it, but maybe they just didn't find it due to Dell's support site being somewhat difficult to navigate for people who aren't used to troubleshooting Dell computers and especially clean installing or dual booting them. One workaround is to install in AHCI mode and then use the safe mode method to switch the storage mode out from under Windows, install missing drivers for the desired boot mode under safe mode if they aren't installed automatically by Windows, then reboot to exit safe mode. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/22631-enable-ahci-windows-8-windows-10-after-installation.html https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/22631-enable-ahci-window... https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/15006-attn-ssd-owners-enabling-ahci-mode-after-windows-10-installation.html https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/15006-attn-ssd-ow... However, OP doesn't seem to have the option to switch to anything other than RST, which could be due to BIOS settings and/or Windows settings, as well as flags on your partitions that cause Windows to boot in read only mode. You might need to toggle some settings for legacy/uefi compatibility mode, reset BIOS/EFI to (un optimized for Windows 8/10/11) default settings, disable secure boot temporarily, etc to let the EFI allow you to toggle the boot mode on some Dell BIOSes, however, especially in OP's case where they appear to not have any alternate drive modes besides RST in BIOS/EFI. In especially bad cases, you might even need to update the BIOS to enable these modes and/or wipe the EFI partitions and possibly the entire boot drive, as sometimes the BIOS/EFI is inserting itself in the boot process via "dirty bits" and/or Fast Startup mode. https://superuser.com/questions/1554458/how-does-windows-locking-down-the-drive-for-fast-startup-work https://superuser.com/questions/1554458/how-does-windows-loc...

emn13 2y ago

Presumably the author really is missing a driver; I doubt he'd have missed being able to install without it. If he really does need such a driver; then the exact name of it or the details of Dell's BIOS options and whether they help sound fairly incidental to the underlying story. Your criticism may be reasonable; but does it really cut at the heart of the issue? Also; some of these options are occasionally oddly named, so let's not ignore the possibility that the article's author is right on this.

duskwuff 2y ago
> Your criticism may be reasonable; but does it really cut at the heart of the issue? The article hardly provides any support for its "closed ecosystems" thesis beyond this anecdote. Whatever the situation is on this hardware (and wmf's sibling comment points out that there might indeed be something odd going on), it seems far more likely that it's the result of sloppy engineering by Dell and/or Microsoft, rather than a deliberate plan to restrict user choice (or something).
- trinsic2 2y ago
  I'm the OP, yes I did not provide much evidence in that specific article, and I'm getting to the point, based on responses that there might be some irregularities between search methods for model specific drivers, so Im willing to admit I might be wrong about this, but the security features that are included in consumer hardware BIOS these days and the way OEM manufactures are designing OEM products leads me to believe that we are moving in a direction that is more closed and locked down, which its not good for the enthusiast community and in the long term, bad for society. We can even see this in other system build vendors ASUS. I have published other articles [0] related to what I believe a slow move towards locked down consumer hardware. [0]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/categories/deceptivetechnology/ https://www.scottrlarson.com/categories/deceptivetechnology/

wmf 2y ago

I think there is a newer version of RST based on NVMe and it has the same problem: if the system is in RST mode the SSDs aren't visible. Dell even has a recent article about this exact problem: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000188116/intel-11th-generation-processors-no-drives-can-be-found-during-windows-10-installation https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000188116/intel-11t...

aspenmayer 2y ago
Nice spot for that article. I'm not sure what to make of OP's issues tbh, as I was able to find the RST driver for their model here: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=dcxgg&oscode=w2021&productcode=inspiron-16-7640-laptop https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetai... via https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/inspiron-16-7640-laptop/drivers https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/prod... Also, you can reboot into safe mode on Windows 10/11 and even 8/8.1, and before it reaches Windows initialization, enter the BIOS/EFI, toggle the AHCI/RAID/RST mode flag, save and exit BIOS/EFI, continue booting Windows to safe mode, install drivers if they aren't automatically installed by Windows, then reboot to exit safe mode. Apparently safe mode re-initializes the HAL similarly to the first install reboot OOBE mode, but normally HAL doesn't like you doing this in normal boot mode. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/22631-enable-ahci-windows-8-windows-10-after-installation.html https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/22631-enable-ahci-window... https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/15006-attn-ssd-owners-enabling-ahci-mode-after-windows-10-installation.html https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/15006-attn-ssd-ow...
- wmf 2y ago
  enter the BIOS/EFI, toggle the AHCI/RAID/RST mode flag He said (with screenshots) that flag doesn't exist. Maybe he didn't look hard enough for the flag and didn't look hard enough for the driver though. I got a "I don't want to fix my laptop; I want to complain" vibe from the blog post.
  - aspenmayer 2y ago