HP Envy x360 no drives found during Win10 installation

[gameengineer]

The original M.2 SSD failed to boot recently giving the error after POST ".. the operating system did not shut down cleanly...".  After running all the HW tests from the BIOS it still did not boot into Windows 10. All tests passed. I figured the drive went bad. I put it into my desktop and was able to pull all the data off. So at least the main partition with the data was not bad.

I deleted the partitionings getting ready for a clean install. It showed two drives in the M.2 under Windows Disk Management in my desktop, 460GB and 27GB. The laptop only recognized the 27GB drive. I was able to install the OS (Win10 x64) but was not able to install drivers so the 460GB would show up. I ultimately wanted to install on the larger drive space obviously. So I gave up on that M.2 thinking maybe there was something wrong with it. I bought a Samsung 980 1TB M.2 NVMe and installed that. I was hopeful that since it was a new drive with no secure nothing installed like bitlocker that it would work however the laptop still did not recognize it during the Win10 x64 installation. It did not show up in the drive selection part of the install.

So,

while I can get the drivers for this laptop, and I have, they are all EXEs. What I need is the raw driver files. (INF, SYS) so I can copy them to the Win10 USB installer stick and select that driver during install. However I cannot find the raw driver files, only the EXE installer. I got all driver files from HP site directly. Now what?

Does anyone know of a generic SSD driver that is compatible with this laptop that can get me installing the OS at least? After that I will install all of the proper drivers for this laptop.

EDIT: I should add this, the BIOS does see the Samsung 980 M.2 drive with the correct size and "Non-RAID" device.

-Steve

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi, Steve:

Since your notebook as an Intel 11th gen core processor, there is a special process needed to install W10 on notebooks with the new Intel 11th gen core processors...

See the info at the link below.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-15-f2000-laptop-pc-series/35900344/model/35900346/document/c...

Here is the link to the driver you need...

This package contains the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver for the supported notebook models and operating systems. The Intel Rapid Storage Technology is designed to provide functionality for the Intel Storage Controllers. The driver improves Serial ATA (SATA) disk performance with Native Command Queuing.

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp135501-136000/sp135979.exe 

There is an error in that document, and that is where HP tells you to right click on the Intel driver file and select Extract to

When I ran through the steps, I don't get an Extract to option when I right click on the file.

You will probably have the same issue.  Download and install the free 7-zip file utility from the link below.

The 1st file at the top of the page is for 64 bit.

7-Zip (7-zip.org)

Then you can right click on the exe file, select 7-Zip from the menu, and select Extract to:  and let it extract the file into its folder name (sp135979), and copy that folder to your USB flash drive, and continue with the instructions.

[gameengineer]

Wow that was a fast response! I never thought to just unzip the EXE. 🙂  I also saw the error in the instructions where the Extract To is not an option in the Win Explorer right click menus.  I  have 7zip installed already so I just used its extract to feature.

That worked and I copied the files to the USB stick however there was no RST drivers in the file per the instructions you linked me to. Plus I'm not setting up RAID and this drive is Non-RAID.

I tried this and it still did not detect the drive on the M.2. I noticed the file you linked me to is sp111776 but that was not a file I found from HP driver page.

Would this work better if I installed Windows 11?  I read somewhere the keys for Win10 work for Win11.

EDIT: My bad! Your supplied file DID work. I clicked in the Win10 folder instead of the F6 folder that was talked about in the article you linked me to. It showed the two available drivers that were supported by the laptop and selected one of them. Now it sees the Samsung M.2 and the full free space.

Thanks so much!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

I edited my post above and found a more recent driver.

See if that one works.

You can always select the option when you click on the load driver selection to check the box that indicates 'only include the compatible driver' and see if that works instead.

I believe that unless Microsoft has fixed the problem in W11, it will also not find the drive.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Glad to have been of assistance.

[gameengineer]

Cool thanks! The original one did work. I edited my previous post too! Good to go now. Much appreciated help from you. I can get my wife's laptop back in order now.

-Steve

EDIT: Just wanted to follow up saying the driver fix from Paul worked great and the Win10 OS is installed.  No issues seen.