Moving Windows 11 intact to an OEM computer

Bree said:

I really have no issues I can find in more than seven years of doing it

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It has always worked for me. IMHO, unless one is having problems or their OCD kicks in if they don't, a clean install is not needed.

hsehestedt said:

Under what conditions is the IRST driver needed?

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For workstation systems equipped with raid, Intel IRST F6 preboot driver requirement has been around for quite some time. I've used workstation systems for over 10 years and my old Dell 4th gen and my 10th gen cpu requires it, as did another Dell workstation that I sold. But it is not Dell specific as I have run into the situation in the past with some HPs as well.

Beginning with Intel 11th generation CPU, Intel uses a different technology and this driver has to be loaded on all systems, not just workstations.
Here's the article from Dell but Asus, Lenovo, and HP have similar articles. Intel 11th and 12th Generation Processors, No Drives Can Be Found During Windows 10 and Windows 11 Installation | Dell Bulgaria
(NOTE: This article mentions Windows retail, but I can attest these drivers have to be pre-loaded when using an iso created by media creation tool as well. As of my last Windows 11 clean install (in Nov.), this boot-start driver was not included as an "in the box with Windows" package. It may well be by now)

In a nutshell when installing Windows, you download Intel IRST F6, unzip it, & load drivers onto a flash drive. During the installation process at the point where it says "where do you want to install windows" it won't show any drives. You click 'load driver' and point it to your flash drive to insert the drivers Or the drivers can be injected into the Win PE image boot.wim file if desired
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I'm looking for the article from Intel regarding the need for this driver specifically with Tiger Lake and Alder Lake CPUs (11th-12 gen). I'll post it when I find it again.

hsehestedt said:

First, I agree wholeheartedly with NavyLCDR in that I believe that there there is a very high probability that it will simply work.

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I agree, I think it will work. I'm surprised I didn't think of it.

hsehestedt said:

Under what conditions is the IRST driver needed?

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@Bree @Winuser

hsehestedt said:

Under what conditions is the IRST driver needed?

Click to expand...

For workstation systems equipped with raid, Intel IRST F6 preboot driver requirement has been around for quite some time. I've used workstation systems for over 10 years and my old Dell 4th gen and my 10th gen cpu requires it, as did another Dell workstation that I sold. But it is not Dell specific as I have run into the situation in the past with some HPs as well.

Beginning with Intel 11th generation CPU, Intel uses a different technology and this driver has to be loaded on all systems, not just workstations.
Here's the article from Dell but Asus, Lenovo, and HP have similar articles. Intel 11th and 12th Generation Processors, No Drives Can Be Found During Windows 10 and Windows 11 Installation | Dell Bulgaria
(NOTE: This article mentions Windows retail, but I can attest these drivers have to be pre-loaded when using an iso created by media creation tool as well. As of my last Windows 11 clean install (in Nov.), this boot-start driver was not included as an "in the box with Windows" package. It may well be by now but I highly doubt it since IRST has been required in the past for workstations and MS did not deem to put the driver into their isos)

In a nutshell when installing Windows, you download Intel IRST F6, unzip it, & load drivers onto a flash drive. During the installation process at the point where it says "where do you want to install windows" it won't show any drives. You click 'load driver' and point it to your flash drive to insert the drivers Or the drivers can be injected into the Win PE image boot.wim file if desired
.
I'm looking for the article from Intel regarding the need for this driver specifically with Tiger Lake and Alder Lake CPUs (11th-12 gen). I'll post it when I find it again.

So my argument regarding this thread is chances that this driver exists on the OP's old computer are slim to none and chances his new computer is at least 11th gen( if its Intel) are pretty good.. We do not know as he didn't say. If that be the case, his old drive will not include the needed driver so when he plugs it into the new system, it will not boot.
Now if he's going from Intel to AMD or AMD-AMD it might.

@glasskuter, do you have a link to the actual driver. I keep finding installer programs and not just the driver.

@glasskuter,

Thanks for the response. What's interesting is that on my system using an ASUS Prime Z590-A motherboard with an Intel i7-11700K CPU, when I boot from a standard, unmodified, retail Windows image, I see all my drives just fine without loading the IRST driver. I just tried it again 5 minutes ago.

In my system I have 2 NVMe SSDs, 2 SATA SSDs, and 2 SATA 8TB HDDs. I see all of them when booting from my unmodified Windows image without the need for the IRST driver.

I'm not using RAID and all my SATA drive interfaces are configured for AHCI, so maybe that's the difference or the reason my system does not seem to need it.

But, just in case I ever do decide to use RAID on this system, maybe I'll just ahead the IRST driver into Windows images so that I don't ever have to worry about loading it manually.

Thanks for shedding some light on this issue.

I think I'll read up on this some more to educate myself further

pat100 said:

I’ve got 2 desktops. A very old one, with lots of data and installed programs, running Win11 Pro on a full retail licence linked to my account and a newer one, fully Win11 compliant and with a big-enough SSD, running Win11 Pro on an OEM licence in a fresh state not linked but activated. (I can link it if that helps.)
I’d like to copy the intact system from the old computer onto the new SSD computer . Then junk the old computer.
But I’d like to use the new computer’s OEM licence and keep the old computer’s full retail licence unused.
Is that possible? I’ve got several hard disks for a transfer. I use Veeam (free Windows version) to backup the old computer to itself.
Winver:
Old 22000.1098
New 22000.978

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Personally, since both computers are windows pro, and since the new one has a large SSD you want to use, I would leave it intact, unregister and reinstall my programs/apps on the new computer, then copy all my data (files and folders) over.

This way you can leave the old computer intact until you get things like you want them, and as a bonus, your new computer would be absolutely clean. Also, your retail version can be used on another computer, although you may have to call Microsoft. (I'm not sure you can unregister Windows 11.)

For me, that would take much less time and effort.

Thanks for the interesting comments and discussion.
I bit the bullet and cloned my old Win11 HD system and data to the new SSD machine.
I used Veeam's free Agent for Windows. Created a backup, moved it to new machine, and restored it via their restoration software on a USB thumb drive.
It was good to move all my customisations and groomed apps like Thunderbird.
Veeam worked well and provided a driver for the SSD. I wasn’t 100% sure what I was doing but crossing my fingers seemed to work.
Windows didn’t make any complaints and shows as Activated. Non-subscription Office 2019 Pro needed reactivating but the website [GETCID.INFO] Microsoft Self-Service Support WebTool gave me the needed confirmation ID so no telephone call was required.

@hsehestedt Please do read and straighten me out if I'm crooked.
This is not the original Intel article I read but it states as of 08/22: Intel® RST storage driver supporting Intel 11th generation platforms and later is not yet available inbox with the operating system. Due to this, the driver must be installed during the installation process to recognize drives that are being managed by Intel® RST on the affected platforms.

I've been thinking and reading a lot on this. For all you saying this poster can just image his old installation and restore it to his new computer without issues(assuming he has 10th or 11th gen core processor), please explain to me HOW,without using Macrium Redeploy to insert the drivers, is he going to get the drivers onto his new machine. Macrium recovery media won't even be able to see his disks during recovery unless he creates his recovery media in WinPE and adds his f6 driver to it. Even then, these drivers are not persistant over to the recovered image. All that does is let him recover the image. The backup he will be restoring will not include those drivers so how can the boot process see them?

This may all be moot anyway. He may be running AMD. @pat100 what cpu ARE you running.

Winuser said:

do you have a link to the actual driver

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I looked at Powerspec to see if they had IRST listed. They don't. Not all 10th generation core cpus use IRST like 11th and 12th gen do. My i9-10900 does. Take a look in device manager to see if it's listed. If it's not, you don't need it.
I got mine from the Dell drivers download page. When I unzipped the .exe file for IRST, it had a folder named F6.

glasskuter said:

Due to this, the driver must be installed during the installation process to recognize drives that are being managed by Intel® RST on the affected platforms.

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Ahhh, yes. I think that I get it now. I think that your statement helped me to understand. I'm not in front of my desktop now, but I seem to recall a setting in the BIOS to disable that functionality in the BIOS. It was a setting something like to enable IRST or Intel RAID. I'll look for that setting when back in front of that machine later.

Because I knew I would not use that functionality I would have disabled all such settings in the BIOS. That would be why I see all the drives without the need of any such driver.

What's interesting is that as a result of this thread, I installed the IRST driver on my computer a little while ago. There was no mention or complaint that something was not enabled in the BIOS.

Still, I suspect that may be what is going on. I'll respond again once I'm back in front of that machine and have had a chance to look at my BIOS settings.

Got it. The screenshot below shows the setting that I was thinking of.

Note that I currently have the SATA mode set to AHCI implying that Intel RST is disabled. I always go through every single line in the BIOS prior to installing an OS and always use standard AHCI for my drives. The entire industry is moving away from RAID so have no need for it and that need will diminish even more in the future as HDD sizes increase.

But this explains why I have not needed the IRST driver. My refusal to use RAID also explains my lack of knowledge on the whole IRST topic. At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it

hsehestedt said:

SATA mode set to AHCI

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That makes sense why in your case the default MS storage controller driver would load.
So how do you interpret the statements from MS (and Dell and all the other manufacturers)?
"Intel 11th and 12th Generation processors use the new Intel Volume Management Device technology. It optimizes the storage devices' data processing effectiveness and power consumption. When you install Windows 10 or Windows 11 Retail, we must load the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) driver so that you can install Windows. It is normal, not a hardware defect.
If your computer is with the 11th Generation Intel processor, and then you will experience that Windows cannot find any drives when installing Windows 10.

One more question. It has always been my understanding that the speed of nvme drives suffer unless one uses IRST. Is that not correct? It would seem so since the manufacturers set the default sata mode as raid which requires IRST.

OK, that's the last of my questions. I know I'll be having dreams (or nightmares) about IRST tonight.

Here is my bios options. Mine came from Dell set as raid.

glasskuter said:

please explain to me HOW,without using Macrium Redeploy to insert the drivers, is he going to get the drivers onto his new machine. Macrium recovery media won't even be able to see his disks during recovery unless he creates his recovery media in WinPE and adds his f6 driver to it.

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If the new computer is using the Intel driver the solution is easy. Create the Macrium Rescue Media on the new computer and make sure Check for devices missing drivers on boot and Enable Multi Boot (MBR/UEFI) is selected. I just made a new USB Rescue disk and a new version of Windows RE is available.

I just thought of something else. My old desktop originally came with the Intel Optane Memory. The very first thing I did was remove the HDD from my new desktop and replaced it with the drive from my old computer. I didn't even start the computer with the original drive. The computer booted to Windows and worked fine. The Optane memory never got used. Later I replace the Optane Memory with a 1TB NVMe drive and used it as drive C: and the old HDD became my data drive.

glasskuter said:

That makes sense why in your case the default MS storage controller driver would load.
So how do you interpret the statements from MS (and Dell and all the other manufacturers)?
"Intel 11th and 12th Generation processors use the new Intel Volume Management Device technology. It optimizes the storage devices' data processing effectiveness and power consumption. When you install Windows 10 or Windows 11 Retail, we must load the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) driver so that you can install Windows. It is normal, not a hardware defect.
If your computer is with the 11th Generation Intel processor, and then you will experience that Windows cannot find any drives when installing Windows 10.

One more question. It has always been my understanding that the speed of nvme drives suffer unless one uses IRST. Is that not correct? It would seem so since the manufacturers set the default sata mode as raid which requires IRST.

OK, that's the last of my questions. I know I'll be having dreams (or nightmares) about IRST tonight.

Here is my bios options. Mine came from Dell set as raid.
View attachment 42272

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That's really interesting. I'm not sure how to interpret that. I wonder if some of the big OEMs simply have some sort of workaround in place. I very vaguely recall seeing some statement from ASUS in some marketing info that sounded vaguely like it might relate to this. I may go on a research expedition to look further into this whole topic.

As for NVMe performance, I wish I knew about that before yesterday because I installed IRST yesterday. I could have performed some before and after tests. However, I have a pretty good feel for the performance of my NVMe drives, so I may do some of the same familiar tasks that involve large file copies today and see if there is any noticeable difference.