Missing my Intel UI in my UEFI

I'll be honest. That always seems like a good policy. I'm not a certified IT but as far as my household goes where I live, way out in the Canadian Northern Gateway, I'm the only IT and that's as good as it gets. I've always been a Johnny-come-lately and about the last guy to learn something new. I'm not sure where to post this and I'm kind of old but not completely lost in cyberspace when it comes to PCs as I've worked with them daily for the better part of over two decades. Having stated this much, I decided to share some of what I expressed to a friend in an email because I would like to regard everyone here on a friendly basis. The original email was entitled: Perhaps I shouldn't have drawn attention to myself because by installing Win 11 on my work station it seems many interesting (but not necessarily good) things have ensued.

As some of you might deduce from reading this missive, I've been busy. I wouldn't mind some input or suggestions. I sure wouldn't mind getting my good ole IRST UI back in my boot screen and running in my UEFI (BIOS) but it would seem that many changes are underway and as usual I've failed to stay on top of things. So any friendly suggestions are welcome.

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology and Intel® Optane™...

Here is my slightly edited email to my friend:




So as it turns out, not only has Optane reached EOL but so has IRST in addition to Win 8.1.

This is an extremely big deal for me as I'm running three IRST arrays and two LSI arrays on one single PC.

So let's review: First Windows 8.1 reaches EOL. Two days later my Win 8.1 Pro won't boot anymore.

After numerous attempts using all the tricks I know it occurs to me that these procedures will not work.

My Win 8.1 Pro (purchased directly from the Microsoft Store) license key, used on one PC only, namely my X99 E-WS USB 3.1 work station was locked out on my LSI RAID 10 array and I simply could not access my OS or, even my data, via the good ole Windows Manager. LSI had me locked out of my logical drive.

As you know I attempted a genuine Windows backup recovery where I received a warning: "AiNVMe.sys file is missing".
I proceeded to correct this issue following instructions on Intel's web site. This is where I learned that my backup on my
Intel Optane based NVMe (memory) failed because Optane had reached EOL. So not only had Win 8.1 reached EOL but
also the functionality of my NVMe memory. (I'm wondering if this might also be why my Kingston NVMe memory failed.)
By resorting to an older backup and using the Windows exclusions to ensure that only drive C and D were to be recovered
the end result was that nearly all my storage drives were consequently written over with old partitions, which resulted in a
mass scramble to recover my partitions and approx 20 TB of lost data. But a horrible thing happened: I could not roll back.
The procedure had written over ALL my other backups. Try as I might (trust me) I tried. All my backups were gone.

So now I'm at the forensics end of things, scraping through Kaspersky's morgue files on my data drives. I have about 11 TB of data left to sift through. Wish me well. So instead of reinstalling an EOL OS I decided to attempt a Win 11 Pro install using my legitimate Windows 8 digital license key purchased directly from Microsoft's own store. I will spare you the excruciating details involving Microsoft's loose instructions on how to do this with only TPM1 on your system board. There is no way that I want to relive those horrendous memories. It took me all of two days to get a legitimate ISO compliments of you-know-who to properly function on a system board using only TPM1.

Yeah, I did it. And this is where the fun begins: Unlike Win 8.1 where practically all the drivers are generously provided in their generic forms many of the drivers I required were not supplied with Win 11 Pro. The OS was quick to point out that my Intel NVMe was in need of a driver but did not provide one until I uninstalled the old one. After installing the standard driver my 660P NVMe seemed to work normally but during this process of getting my Win 11 Pro all caught up on drivers and configured correctly I did not notice that something else had happened:

My UEFI UI for IRST vanished. When I boot up my PC no longer displays all that pretty green text that tells me everything is running fine. If I dig deep in my UEFI I can find the arrays and I can access them via Windows Manager in the OS, but the official pre-boot, colored text, IRST UI is nowhere to be found. The arrays work. The drives are there and functional. This is very hard on an OCD guy like me. Methinks the time has come to reinstall Linux. Three EOL's in a single week is too hard on my nerves.

Anyhoo

Time to get back to work

ETU

Per the article. For Windows, it is only the driver bundled user management interfaces that are EOL. They have been replaced by user interfaces through the Microsoft Store. When you install the iRST driver the Windows store management app will be installed as well.

In my BIOS (which is using 18.x Intel RST UEFI interface), there is a section in the BIOS that gives you the IRST status through an EFI driver.

The green text in BIOS you are talking about is an outdated, legacy, non-UEFI BIOS driver. You should be able to configure your EFI BIOS to use legacy mode (CSM enabled) and the legacy BIOS drivers if that is really what you want, if the BIOS supports it (mine does).

IRST is plenty alive. Optane on the other hand... Micron is no longer going to produce the chips for Optane, so who knows - it is probably dead.

As @geneo stated IRST IS alive and well....and still supporting optane...as long as the user's hardware is of a certain vintage. You did not give complete specs of the system you are having issues with so I do not know what chipset you are using. Since you mentioned a Windows 8 license, I suspect it is older than 8th gen. You are correct in that optane itself is EOL. However, Intel is still supporting it with later processors. You are also correct in that the management app is no longer included with the IRST driver. Per Intel "The Intel® Optane™ Memory and Storage Management Application will continue to be available from the Microsoft Store* to deliver monitoring and management capabilities for the Intel® RST storage subsystem. Note: The Intel® RST Driver is required to be installed before installing the application"

If you have 8th or 9th gen core processor latest IRST driver is here Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Driver Installation Software with Intel® Optane™ Memory (8th and 9th Gen Platforms)

If you have a chipset earlier than 8th gen, the last IRST driver Intel released is here. Read the release and readme files to see if your chipset is on the list.

The following is for anyone reading this who has later core processors (10th and 11th generation). Driver is here. Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Driver Installation Software with Intel® Optane™ Memory (10th and 11th Gen Platforms) Per the readme and release notes it applies to certain 11th generation platforms so check the release notes and readme files to see if it is applicable to your 11th gen or the next one I am listing below.
It seems one driver is for a certain pairing of chipsets/cpus and another driver is for a different set of chipsets/cpus. Read the release notes and readme files to see if yours is listed. Also note of Intels's warning in the readme.
The system must contain one of the Intel controllers listed in Section 1 “SUPPORTED
PLATFORMS/CHIPSETS” above and one of the following types of processors***:
The way I read that statement is it is dependent on one having a certain cpu paired with a certain chipset. If anyone reads it differently please correct me.

11th up to 13th gen platforms Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Driver Installation Software with Intel® Optane™ Memory (11th up to 13th Gen Platforms)


NOTE: IRST must be enabled in UEFI bios before the IRST driver is required. If it is not enabled, then your system is probably running on the basic MS storage controller driver. You can find out by going to device manager and expand the storage controller category. Also check your uefi bios.

geneo said:

Per the article. For Windows, it is only the driver bundled user management interfaces that are EOL. They have been replaced by user interfaces through the Microsoft Store. When you install the iRST driver the Windows store management app will be installed as well.

In my BIOS (which is using 18.x Intel RST UEFI interface), there is a section in the BIOS that gives you the IRST status through an EFI driver.

The green text in BIOS you are talking about is an outdated, legacy, non-UEFI BIOS driver. You should be able to configure your EFI BIOS to use legacy mode (CSM enabled) and the legacy BIOS drivers if that is really what you want, if the BIOS supports it (mine does).

IRST is plenty alive. Optane on the other hand... Micron is no longer going to produce the chips for Optane, so who knows - it is probably dead.

Click to expand...

As for the IRST BIOS > Yeah, well I tried that too. Alas, my Win 11 just sits with the Windows logo and waits... and waits... and goes no further than the logo when I enable the legacy IRST through CSM. Nonetheless I'm giving you credit for help because your suggestion did make my lovely green legacy text reappear! So one problem at a time, I suppose. I just had to work up the courage to try it and see if it would kill my Win 11. Yup. It killed my Win 11. I kinda thought it might do that. In fact, I kinda hoped nobody would suggest changing my CSM settings. It wasn't hard to get back my OS but, of course, now my lovely green text is gone again.

I also had that GUI IRST replacement from the Windows store you mentioned (and I still have it) but I kinda miss the old school version TBH. It's still working fine in my Windows 7 U. I never thought WIN 11 would be so bloddy invasive. (Pardon my French and bad spelling). Seems I can have one or the other, but not both; and being a man who likes his options, I find this completely unsatisfactory. I have my Win 11 running on my "Optane" based stick of NVMe now but it's not in RAID and likely never will be now. The Intel NVMe I'm referring to is no longer supported by Intel and it would seem that Intel has passed the buck to Solidigm. I don't have time for this and I'm not too happy with Intel either. That missing "IaNVMe.sys" file cost me a great deal of time, energy, and dollars. (Not to mention the hardship and stress incurred.) I accept responsibility for trusting that which should not be trusted (namely Microsoft) but 10 TB of data is a lot to sift through when you're trying to recover files from partitions that were inadvertently written over via Windows Recovery that flat out ignored exclusions. Anyway, I'm ranting.

I'm guessing IRST is done for the future and Optane is dead in the water. I don't see Intel calling it EOL if this were not the case.

SMH... What a sacrifice. Win 8.1 gone. Optane gone. IRST history.

Optane's not dead.... as it's now owned by Solidigm. Just moved on.

​

Scannerman said:

I have my Win 11 running on my "Optane" based stick of NVMe now but it's not in RAID and likely never will be now. The Intel NVMe I'm referring to is no longer supported by Intel and it would seem that Intel has passed the buck to Solidigm.

Click to expand...

I'm not so sure Solidigm is calling it Optane anymore but I couldn't find support for the Intel hardware I'm using on their website. It would seem that this has changed since. As for Intel's website they flat out say that they no longer support it. I found this but I think they've already developed the generic driver for Microsoft and it looks like I have it now >> Solidigm™ Storage Driver for Client SSDs