Need help installing Win 11 on new SSD in Asus laptop

I have an Asus Proart Studiobook 16.
I have bought a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB SSD to replace the one in the laptop, it is showing in the bios, so pretty sure it's functioning.
I swapped the drives over, put my USB windows installation media in and turned the laptop on.
I got a very short way through before it told me there's no drive.
Swapped the drives over again so I could get back into my old windows and done a bit of googling, found i needed the RST drivers on the USB drive to load.

I kept downloading it from the Intel site and kept seeing tutorials saying click extract instead of install, but the installation just kept saying it's not compatible with my system, so there was no option.
I found a forum topic regarding the same thing, and some guy has made them into a zip file to download, tried that and during the installation, got back to where it was saying no drive, tried to load them, and nothing was showing, I had to tick show incompatible drivers, then 3 listed, I tried using each but wouldn't work still.

Now I am really not sure what to do next?

Furthermore, which is odd, since getting back into windows on my old drive, it's now showing an E: drive, which I assume is the recovery partition in 'this pc' which it wasn't showing it before.
Not sure why?
I know I will lose that when I replace the SSD, but just not sure why it's showing there since trying to add the new SSD.

If anyone can please help, that would be much appreciated.

Regards
James

One option if your system uses RST drivers is to disable Raid in the bios and switch to ACHI mode

As a laptop has proprietary drivers, I suggest you create a backup of all drivers on an external drive.

The Intel RST drivers must be as *.ini, *.sys, *.cat etc.
On the Intel Site you will find a *.exe and you need to extract the drivers from it.

Extract driver files from SetupRST.exe:
- Open terminal in the directory with SetupRST.exe by right-clicking the directory
and selecting "Open in Terminal" or "Open PowerShell here"
- Enter the following command:
./SetupRST.exe -extractdrivers SetupRST_extracted

Any reason why you just don't clone the existing drive into the new one?

Megahertz -My Laptop is just very cluttered and would rather start fresh than have it as it is.

That is brilliant though, thank you so much for the tutorial on how to do that, I have just extracted them files to a USB stick, it will probably be a few days before I can try it again as I need the laptop for work, so will have to wait till I'm free.

I really appreciate how helpful that is though.

I totally agree with @bfunke. Go into the bios, turn off raid and change disk mode to AHCI. Easy Peazy. You gain nothing by using IRST driver. I have run extensive tests on my disks both with IRST (raid) and using default Microsoft standard storage controller drivers(AHCI) Speed is almost identical either way. If you read the clean install windows tutorial, that's what it advises.

Just had a look in bios, would i be disabling VMD in the bios as shown below in pic 2?

On the first pic it shows VMD but say it's non-raid?

A clean install will delete everything on the drive (you MUST create all your data backup on an external drive or another partition)
There is another non drastic solution: A Reset
Don't understand me wrong, I'm a big fan of a clean install, specially on OEM computers as they come with a lot of useless applications.

Thanks, is the above right though, that I would disable vmd

From Copilot,
" Intel VMD (Volume Management Device) is a storage controller feature found in some BIOS settings. It’s designed to manage and aggregate NVMe SSDs. Essentially, it acts as an “integrated end point” within the Skylake CPU, allowing the operating system and BIOS to recognize and interact with NVMe drives through the Intel VMD controller1. While enabling VMD provides features like error isolation, hot-plug support, and RAID capability, real-world performance differences are often minimal. If you’re not interested in setting up RAID, using standard NVMe drivers may be a simpler choice2. Keep in mind that specific implementations can vary, so checking your laptop’s documentation or consulting the manufacturer’s recommendations is advisable."

Your laptop drivers, please check model is correct,

And do you know if it's normal for it to show as non raid even though it's using IRST as I assumed it was raid

Yes that's my laptop

If it was me I'd disable VMD in bios and try a clean install of Windows again, if it fails you can always enable again and download the IRST driver and put on a flash drive. You should be able to search for it when installing. Have both Win USB and IRST USB plugged in when installing Windows.

BIOS RAID array is set under BIOS and the array is seen by the OS as one drive. It requires a RAID driver.
Basically you can set BIOS as RAID without having an array. Then, even if you install Win on a single drive it will require a Raid driver.
As I can see from your BIOS image, the Samsung 990 Pro is set as AHCI so all you need is a AHCI driver.
For what I know, Intel 12th and 13th gen needs a IRST AHCI driver to be loaded during Win installation.

If you make all drivers backup like iI suggested on my post#3 the IRST driver should be there.
I have recently installed Win 11 on a Samsung Intel 12th gen and have used the attached AHCI driver.
I suggest you decompress to the USB drive and load it during installation.
If the drive isn't needed by Win 11 it wont be used.

Intel® VMD is the new way to configure 11th Generation and greater Intel® Core™ Processor-based platforms for Intel® RST management of RAID and Intel® Optane™ memory volumes.
Sorry the distinction was not mentioned in previous answers. It's been called RAID in bios for well over 30 years and always required the IRST driver. Still calling it that is an old habit I need to break for newer CPUs. RAID has always been the default setting for professional grade computers and workstations but we rarely ever saw it turned on by default in consumer grade products.

So Yes, that's Intels new way of saying 'raid' and yes, it is very normal for manufacturers to turn that option on in the factory in some systems.

Seems like all the big PC makers (HP, Dell, Asus) are using IRST by default these days.

james_uk said:

Thanks, is the above right though, that I would disable vmd

Click to expand...

Yes, disabling the VMD controller will put the computer in AHCI mode.