Never-ending nightmare for Windows 11 newbie, please help.

theres no need to do that, simply disconnect from the internet.

@JDHinAL

Pretty sure you want to load those rst drivers

full instructions with screenshots at hp site.

The same instructions for dell tigerlake machines. Might be easier to follow

SIW2 said:

@JDHinAL

Pretty sure you want to load those rst drivers

full instructions with screenshots at hp site.

The same instructions for dell tigerlake machines. Might be easier to follow

Intel 11th, 12th, and 13th Generation Processors, No Drives Can Be Found During Windows 10 and Windows 11 Installation | Dell UK

Click to expand...

@SIW2

Based upon my long-ago experience, I have a very healthy respect for drivers and their impact on a computer!

After my recent WU driver brawl on this HP laptop, I updated the five drivers HPSA recommended even though all of my drivers had just been updated by WU. After affirming, no drivers were either missing or conflicting, I backed up all of the drivers onto a USB stick.

I also tried to cross-reference the recommended drivers from the HP software and driver support website for my laptop against what I saw in Device Manager. Some of the driver versions were the same, however, some were different than those on HP. I assume the different driver versions were from WU.

Note: When I finally asked the second support subscription company I have about this discrepancy, they said to always use drivers recommended by WU. This is contrary to everything I have previously known about drivers, but, hey, I've been living in an antiquated reality, so what do I know? lol

Long story short, in the end, I unzipped each and every most recent driver sofpaq from HP using 7-zip. From there, I went to Device Manager and clicked driver update for each and every driver and pointed it to my driver backup folder. No drivers were updated during this process. Thus, I'm assuming my drivers at the time of that particular reset were correct. However, I'm not 100% certain that my sofpaq drivers from HP would necessarily know to override WU's drivers. All I know for certain is that I currently have no missing drivers and no driver conflicts. What I don't truly know is if one driver version might be a smidge better than another.

I have read tons and attempted to do tons with this laptop. Lots of it is getting jumbled in my head. If I am understanding your response, my newest reset drivers are:

Intel RST VMD Controller 9A0B
Intel RST VMD Managed Controller 09AB
Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller

Honestly, because Device Manager isn't showing any issues, I haven't actually compared my current drivers against my recently backed up drivers from my previous reset.

Are these the drivers you were referencing, and do they look good to you? It would be awesome if I could get rid of my restart blinking and get my USB transfer speeds on par to my old Toshiba laptop!

Many sincere thanks for all of your insight and input! I appreciate any help at all! A true case in point, I only recently discovered that 7-zip will unzip HP's sofpaqs! To someone as ignorant as I am, this bit of info was a tremendous gift!

SIW2 said:

theres no need to do that, simply disconnect from the internet.

Click to expand...

That didn't work at least for me. For some reason Windows 11 Pro didn't have a driver for my laptop's WiFi. Since it wasn't connecting to the Internet the setup refused to go any further until I connected to the Internet. I had to pick up my laptop and move it into the room with the router and connect the computer to it using an Ethernet cable. I was then able to continue with the setup.

What is the big deal about connecting to the Internet? The Windows 11 setup goes much faster because it is able to download needed updates during the setup. Besides, you have to connect to the Internet eventually because it still needs a bunch of updates after the setup is done.

I have installed Windows 11 at least a dozen times (both Home and Pro). Using my trick I was always able to start with a local account. I find disconnecting from the Internet during the setup is simply a wasted of time. Note, if my laptop didn't have Ethernet then I would have had to use one of the other workarounds to get past the Internet requirement.

JDHinAL said:

@SIW2

Based upon my long-ago experience, I have a very healthy respect for drivers and their impact on a computer!

After my recent WU driver brawl on this HP laptop, I updated the five drivers HPSA recommended even though all of my drivers had just been updated by WU. After affirming, no drivers were either missing or conflicting, I backed up all of the drivers onto a USB stick.

I also tried to cross-reference the recommended drivers from the HP software and driver support website for my laptop against what I saw in Device Manager. Some of the driver versions were the same, however, some were different than those on HP. I assume the different driver versions were from WU.

Note: When I finally asked the second support subscription company I have about this discrepancy, they said to always use drivers recommended by WU. This is contrary to everything I have previously known about drivers, but, hey, I've been living in an antiquated reality, so what do I know? lol

Long story short, in the end, I unzipped each and every most recent driver sofpaq from HP using 7-zip. From there, I went to Device Manager and clicked driver update for each and every driver and pointed it to my driver backup folder. No drivers were updated during this process. Thus, I'm assuming my drivers at the time of that particular reset were correct. However, I'm not 100% certain that my sofpaq drivers from HP would necessarily know to override WU's drivers. All I know for certain is that I currently have no missing drivers and no driver conflicts. What I don't truly know is if one driver version might be a smidge better than another.

I have read tons and attempted to do tons with this laptop. Lots of it is getting jumbled in my head. If I am understanding your response, my newest reset drivers are:

Intel RST VMD Controller 9A0B
Intel RST VMD Managed Controller 09AB
Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller

Honestly, because Device Manager isn't showing any issues, I haven't actually compared my current drivers against my recently backed up drivers from my previous reset.

Are these the drivers you were referencing, and do they look good to you? It would be awesome if I could get rid of my restart blinking and get my USB transfer speeds on par to my old Toshiba laptop!

Many sincere thanks for all of your insight and input! I appreciate any help at all! A true case in point, I only recently discovered that 7-zip will unzip HP's sofpaqs! To someone as ignorant as I am, this bit of info was a tremendous gift!

Click to expand...

SIW2 said:

@JDHinAL

Pretty sure you want to load those rst drivers

full instructions with screenshots at hp site.

HP PCs - No drives can be found during Windows 11 or Windows 10 installation (Intel 11th Generation processors) | HP® Customer Support

No drives can be found because the Media Creation Tool does not provide the storage drivers. Follow these steps to create installation media, locate and install the missing storage drivers, and complete the Windows 11 or Windows 10 installation.

support.hp.com

The same instructions for dell tigerlake machines. Might be easier to follow

Intel 11th, 12th, and 13th Generation Processors, No Drives Can Be Found During Windows 10 and Windows 11 Installation | Dell UK

Click to expand...

@SIW2

Sheesh! I just followed your HP link and I do remember seeing that at some point because it involved the issue with Intel's TigerLake; however, because I originally had no substantial reason to use MCT instead of reset, I basically dismissed it in anticipation that Intel would eventually find a Microsoft approved fix for the issue! Thank you bunches and bunches for pointing my attention back to it!!!

I am going to have to carefully study HP's tut, along with Dell's, and figure out if I can successfully navigate the complexities involved. At this point I am becoming inclined to go to my original subscription support provider with the 4 day turn-a-round time frame and say, "Give it your best shot!" However, with a fresh frame of mind tomorrow, maybe I can muster better than that because I really do want to learn!

Many super sincere thanks for your additional research and for politely nudging me towards a much needed action! If I decide to go it without the help of Big Box, I feel certain you saved me a lot of heartache!

*Edited to better reflect my past thoughts and actions.

MisterEd said:

That didn't work at least for me. For some reason Windows 11 Pro didn't have a driver for my laptop's WiFi. Since it wasn't connecting to the Internet the setup refused to go any further until I connected to the Internet. I had to pick up my laptop and move it into the room with the router and connect the computer to it using an Ethernet cable. I was then able to continue with the setup.

What is the big deal about connecting to the Internet? The Windows 11 setup goes much faster because it is able to download needed updates during the setup. Besides, you have to connect to the Internet eventually because it still needs a bunch of updates after the setup is done.

I have installed Windows 11 at least a dozen times (both Home and Pro). Using my trick I was always able to start with a local account. I find disconnecting from the Internet during the setup is simply a wasted of time. Note, if my laptop didn't have Ethernet then I would have had to use one of the other workarounds to get past the Internet requirement.

Click to expand...

@MisterEd

Your method was entirely relatable to me. I would go so far as to call it easy-peasy.

Who really knows why one thing works for one person but not another?

For instance, during my original OOBE set up I tried to Bluetooth connect my Samsung phone to my laptop at least 10 times before I finally succeeded. And before finally succeeding, I had to look up a visual tut. Come to find out, as multiple windows were popping up on both my laptop and my phone at the same time, I was inadvertently responding to one of them out of order. Thus, the multiple failures. During my subsequent resets I haven't gone far enough to try to connect my phone again, but I feel almost certain that if those windows pop up in the same order as they did before, then I will experience another failure without the tut to guide me. Too bad I didn't save the tut link! lol

Many warm thanks for your first-hand experience. It might be just what I need when the time comes!

JDHinAL said:

@SIW2

Sheesh! I just followed your HP link and I do remember seeing that at some point because it involved the issue with Intel's TigerLake; however, because I originally had no substantial reason to use MCT instead of reset, I basically dismissed it in anticipation that Intel would eventually find a Microsoft approved fix for the issue! Thank you bunches and bunches for pointing my attention back to it!!!

I am going to have to carefully study HP's tut, along with Dell's, and figure out if I can successfully navigate the complexities involved. At this point I am becoming inclined to go to my original subscription support provider with the 4 day turn-a-round time frame and say, "Give it your best shot!" However, with a fresh frame of mind tomorrow, maybe I can muster better than that because I really do want to learn!

Many super sincere thanks for your additional research and for politely nudging me towards a much needed action! If I decide to go it without the help of Big Box, I feel certain you saved me a lot of heartache!

*Edited to better reflect my past thoughts and actions.

Click to expand...

It is not only MCT.

It is the same if you download the iso direct from microsoft, which is preferable because it includes install.wim rather than the more compressed install.esd. Though it still needs the RST drivers loaded to see the disk when installing from booted media.

According to the DELL link the RST drivers are also needed for their 12th and 13th gen machines

Havent seen dell or hp mention the 14th gen, but presumably will be the same

SIW2 said:

It is not only MCT.

It is the same if you download the iso direct from microsoft, which is preferable because it includes install.wim rather than the more compressed install.esd. Though it still needs the RST drivers loaded to see the disk when installing from booted media.

According to the DELL link the RST drivers are also needed for their 12th and 13th gen machines

Havent seen dell or hp mention the 14th gen, but presumably will be the same

Click to expand...

@SIW2

The drivers I listed came from my current Device Manager via Storage Controllers. They are the closest drivers to what I think you are referencing. To be honest, I get terribly befuddled when it comes to drivers. Device Manager seems to allocate them to a particular usage area and call them by a particular name, whereas HP's driver info is rather vague in comparison. For the most part, I feel like I'm in a crapshoot when it comes to drivers. Hence, I typically only look for errors and hope for the best going forward if no immediate issues are found.

I concur. As I understand it, only TigerLake has an issue... meaning none before it nor after it... to date.

It is very late my time... not only am I feeling absolutely brain dead, but I am also seeing double. I will revisit your thoughts tomorrow when I am refreshed.

Many thanks for your continued input!

JDHinAL said:

My subsequent questions of concern are:

1.) If I reinstall using MCT, will my OEM license still be valid?

Click to expand...

Yes

JDHinAL said:

2.) In the old days, using any reinstall method outside of the now defunct HP recovery partition would cause a computer not to be recognized by HP ever again. Thereby, effectively, locking a user out of any new driver updates. Primarily for this reason, I have stayed within the reset options from Settings. Will my laptop still be recognized by HP if I use the MCT?

Click to expand...

Yes

JDHinAL said:

3.) Bypassing the Internet during reinstallation will result in a local account. Again, I have no issue with this as a solid starting point. I will check out your link for switching to a Microsoft account from a local account to see if I did something wrong the first time around when I got the managed by your organization issue. However, I strongly suspect that issue was caused by BloatyNosy.

Click to expand...

If you're going to use a Microsoft account, there is no need to install as local. Go ahead and install as Microsoft account.

JDHinAL said:

4.) Without thoroughly reviewing the tutorials you have kindly pointed me to, I am concerned if I have to go into the BIOS to change my boot order. The BIOS feels like a dark and mysterious place... much like the registry... that I should probably avoid unless I have absolute breadcrumbs to undo anything I do. lol

Click to expand...

You don't need to change BIOS boot priority to boot from a USB drive. During post launch the Boot Menu by pressing F? . Some computers is F12 others are F8 and I think HP is F9. Some you press Esc and a small menu appears with some options, including Boot Menu.
"The generic HP boot menu keys are Esc and F9. The key to access HP laptop boot menu on most models is Esc (HP Pavilion boot menu is no exception). The universal HP BIOS keys are Esc, F10, and F1"

JDHinAL said:

Thank you very much for your time and suggestions!

Click to expand...

A reset isn't a clean install as you use the installation files already on the computer.

SIW2 said:

It is not only MCT.

It is the same if you download the iso direct from microsoft, which is preferable because it includes install.wim rather than the more compressed install.esd. Though it still needs the RST drivers loaded to see the disk when installing from booted media.

According to the DELL link the RST drivers are also needed for their 12th and 13th gen machines

Havent seen dell or hp mention the 14th gen, but presumably will be the same

Click to expand...

I can't understand why Microsoft did not integrate the RST drivers into the installation files. To get it worst, Intel don't deliver the driver files (*.cat, *.inf, *.sys etc). It delivers an exe file and you need to extract the files from it.
- Download the latest RST driver
- Open a Power Shell window and type:
path/SetupRST.exe -extractdrivers SetupRST_extracted
Replace parh with the path where you downloaded the SetupRST.exe
Ex.: C:\Users\Name\Download\SetupRST.exe -extractdrivers SetupRST_extracted

I provided the HP driver files for winpe in a zip. Post #8 and attached again below:

HP-winpe-18.36.2-plus-19.50.0.zip

The DELL recommended winpe RST drivers have slightly higher numbers so are presumably more recent. I have included the DELL recommended drivers in my custom winpe on the assumption they will work for other oem machines, acer, lenovo etc. I expect they will also work on HP machines, but I haven't got a hp 11th, 12th, or 13th gen machine to test on.

I just did an extraction using a RSTsetup.exe and it has many drivers


@SIW2, I suppose I would use AHCI. Could you please explain the other options and why they are different from the ones from your link

Dont ask me, the drivers in my zip are the ones supplied by HP for both winpe win10 and win11.

Dell rst drivers for winpe win10 are not exactly the same versions as dell rst drivers for winpe win11.

dell-rst-winpe11.zip

You need ALL the files that were extracted. Each folder has drivers for different components of IRST.
Put all those folders you extracted into a master folder on external drive. You point to the master folder during install.

Step by step with screenshots how to insert drivers during windows install here. It's a Dell article but steps for any brand machine are exactly the same.

Megahertz said:

If you're going to use a Microsoft account, there is no need to install as local. Go ahead and install as Microsoft account.

Click to expand...

In order to bypass OneDrive's auto-syncing, I will be installing as a local account. Afterwards, I will convert it to my Microsoft account.

Megahertz said:

You don't need to change BIOS boot priority to boot from a USB drive. During post launch the Boot Menu by pressing F? . Some computers is F12 others are F8 and I think HP is F9. Some you press Esc and a small menu appears with some options, including Boot Menu.
"The generic HP boot menu keys are Esc and F9. The key to access HP laptop boot menu on most models is Esc (HP Pavilion boot menu is no exception). The universal HP BIOS keys are Esc, F10, and F1"

Click to expand...

I had to go the Esc and F9 route when I used the HP Cloud Recovery Tool. It was terribly confusing for me because the menu didn't show my USB stick by name. There was a bit of verbiage in front of it... maybe EFI or something similar... then enough was written after it for me to deduce that was probably my USB stick. Besides, nothing else seemed to fit. lol

Megahertz said:

A reset isn't a clean install as you use the installation files already on the computer.

Click to expand...

The reset part of this is still a bit confusing to me.

1.) I thought the HP Cloud Recovery Tool was a clean install of Windows, but with HP drivers, software, bloatware, and trialware added to it.

2.) I understood that doing a local reset via Settings would use my existing system files. However, I thought doing a reset via Settings and using the Cloud option would give me a clean install of Windows because it downloaded fresh system files from either HP or Microsoft... but, again, with all of HP's stuff included.

3.) In hindsight, are the HP Cloud Recovery Tool and the Cloud option in reset via Settings actually exactly one in the same... but with different methods of installation?

4.) Additionally, I thought system files were only "recycled" if I chose local install. So... does the HP Cloud Recovery Tool and the reset via Settings using the Cloud option actually install fresh system files or not?

Sincere thanks for your all your help!

EDIT: P.S. I should note here that I'm not referencing, or confusing, the MCT with any of the above. I understand that MCT is entirely outside of HP. I am just trying to develop a better understanding of reset via Settings and the HP Cloud Recovery Tool as it applies to my HP laptop. In hindsight, trying to stay within the confines of HP might be contributing to my issues.

I just checked one my driver backup folders, and this is what is present for IRST. This is an unzipped sofpaq that I downloaded last week from HP Support for my HP laptop model. The sofpaq is: sp138539. The name of the main folder that it's located in is my paraphrased description, and release date, of the driver inside as per HP's description. The original sofpaq is also in the folder.

Through my many resets, I have relied entirely on the reset process to put all of my drivers where they belong... and to not miss installing any. Currently, Device Manager isn't reporting any errors. But...

If I wanted to verify that all of the bits of IRST are properly installed in Device Manager, how could I do it?

Thanks so much for your continuing help!

I thought the HP Cloud Recovery Tool was a clean install of Windows, but with HP drivers, software, bloatware, and trialware added to it.

Click to expand...

I have downloaded recovery media for win10 ( not for win11) via the recovery tool.
It is installation media with oem drivers and unwanted crud included.
Dell recovery downloads an iso file into a temp folder, which it then extracts to usb stick
HP cloud recovery downloads 2 wim files into a temp folder, which it then extracts to usb stick

Don't confuse the drivers in your current installation with winpe specific drivers. They are not necessarily the same. Often winpe drivers will only include the parts that are needed for boot.wim/winre.wim/winpe.wim and the inf files can be different and apply different registry settings.

You can get away with using the normal os drivers in winpe for some things ( e.g. network card drivers) but I dont recommend it for boot critical drivers - use the winpe specific drivers.

JDHinAL said:

I just checked one my driver backup folders, and this is what is present for IRST. This is an unzipped sofpaq that I downloaded last week from HP Support for my HP laptop model. The sofpaq is: sp138539. The name of the main folder that it's located in is my paraphrased description, and release date, of the driver inside as per HP's description. The original sofpaq is also in the folder.

Through my many resets, I have relied entirely on the reset process to put all of my drivers where they belong... and to not miss installing any. Currently, Device Manager isn't reporting any errors. But...

If I wanted to verify that all of the bits of IRST are properly installed in Device Manager, how could I do it?

Thanks so much for your continuing help!


View attachment 77860

Click to expand...

This is a view of Storage Controllers in Device Manager's current state:

JDHinAL said:

I just checked one my driver backup folders, and this is what is present for IRST. This is an unzipped sofpaq that I downloaded last week from HP Support for my HP laptop model. The sofpaq is: sp138539. The name of the main folder that it's located in is my paraphrased description, and release date, of the driver inside as per HP's description. The original sofpaq is also in the folder.

Through my many resets, I have relied entirely on the reset process to put all of my drivers where they belong... and to not miss installing any. Currently, Device Manager isn't reporting any errors. But...

If I wanted to verify that all of the bits of IRST are properly installed in Device Manager, how could I do it?

Thanks so much for your continuing help!

Click to expand...

I would say that F6 folder has the drives for installation.

You seem to be confusing the installation on your disk with the bootable installation media.

When installing in the traditional way, the installation media is booted ( e.g. from usb stick ) and a little guy called boot.wim is loaded into random access memory.



So you have a tiny version of windows running ram. That is called winpe.

From there you can begin the setup routine which asks where you want to install windows and then it partitions the selected disk ( if necessary) and it applies the contents of the big install.wim ( or install.esd) to the selected disk.

The problem arises because the winpe in boot.wim cannot see the disk unless you add the appropriate drivers to it.