SSD not showing in windows installation.

[ctm_11]

I am trying to install Windows 10 on a single partition that spans the entire drive. Previously, I partitioned my drive into multiple partitions and successfully installed Windows 10 which has been working for more than a few years now. After miscalculating the size of the boot partition, I want to wipe the entire drive and start fresh without any partitioning (as in just one partition). I installed windows media creation tool on a usb drive and booted into it. I used shift+f10 to open the command prompt to use diskpart to clean the drive. However, it's not found in list disk. The only drive diskpart sees is my usb drive. The bios can see both drives. Also, I can no longer boot into windows. I've no idea why but I assume it got filled entirely from windows updates and regular use that it somehow broke itself.

I searched around a little and tried some solutions that others with similar problems used, but nothing quite worked. I was pretty reluctant to come here but I'm tired and out of ideas. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

What I suggest you try is this:

I have zipped up and attached below, the Intel storage controller drivers that I hope work for Windows to find the hard drive.

Copy all of the files in both folders in the attached file to a USB flash drive.

Have the flash drive and your Windows installation media plugged into USB ports.

Boot from the W10 installation flash drive.

When you get to the screen where no drives can be found, click on the Load driver option, browse to the flash drive with the storage controller drivers on it.

If you check the box, it will only include the compatible driver.

Click Next and if those are the right drivers Windows should find the drive and install.

Before you go to actually install Windows, after it finds the drive, you can then delete every partition on the drive, leaving just one partition of unallocated space and then Windows will install using the full capacity of the drive.

[ctm_11]

This worked! Everything you described worked to a T. 

I had tried this before but with different drivers (Realtek Card Reader Driver 10.0.19041.21338 Rev.A and Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver 18.0.1.1138 Rev.A) I found under the Drive-Storage tab in the Software and Drivers section for my laptop model but both refused to be detected when attempting to load them, even when manually browsing to them.

Thank you so much!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.