Windows 8.1installer not detecting NVME drive

[themsovietbois]

Hello internet, recently i wanted to downgrade my HP 15-nq2000ne from Windows 11 to Windows 10, but i accidentally flashed the wrong format and since i attempted to boot into it, windows 11 detected it as a threat and initiated bitlocker, luckily i had a Linux bootable USB and booted into it and formatted my drive, now the problem is, my BIOS is UEFI only which means i need to use a FAt32 installation media, which disallows me to flash an ISO heavier than 4GB, so i needed to use the Windows 8.1 ISO and upgrade from that, now the problem is, Windows installer doesnt detect my NVME drive, it says it needs a driver, i tried all of the drivers are made for my laptop, none work, any other ways to troubleshoot? (NVME drive model: KBG40ZNV256G KIOXIA (HP00AE00))

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

If your notebook has an Intel 11th gen core processor, you need to install a certain storage controller driver for W10 to see the hard drive.

I suggest you make a bootable USB W10 installer with Rufus.  Download the W10 64 bit ISO file from the link below and use Rufus to transfer the file to your 8 GB flash drive.  

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

On the Rufus menu set the partition scheme as GPT and it will do the rest.

Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

Then follow these instructions to install the driver...

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/sp111501-112000/sp111776.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.

No doubt you will have the same issue, so 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 (sp111776), and copy that folder to your USB flash drive, and continue with the instructions.

[themsovietbois]

hello paul, thanks for replying!

unfortunately Rufus isnt supported on Linux, i have to use WoeUSB instead, will that work fine?

and yes i have an 11th gen CPU

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Give it a try.

I only am familiar with what works on Windows.

I don't think that the storage driver I provided will work on W8.1 but you could try it and see what happens.

I'd do that before proceeding with making a bootable W10 ISO file.

[themsovietbois]

just came back from booting into W8.1 and it didnt work, i got an error saying "no signed drivers were found"

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Well, you gave it a shot.

You have to be able to get W10 to boot up, so you can load the driver.

[themsovietbois]

now i got another problem, my BIOS doesnt support NTFS boot, and if i flash using FAT32 it wont move install.wim because it is larger than 4 gb which FAT32 doesnt support, and if i try to flash using NTFS i will get an error:

Installation failed!
Exit code: 256
Log:
WoeUSB v3.3.1
==============================
Mounting source filesystem...
Wiping all existing partition table and filesystem signatures in /dev/sdb...
/dev/sdb: 2 bytes were erased at offset 0x000001fe (dos): 55 aa
/dev/sdb: calling ioctl to re-read partition table: Success
Ensure that /dev/sdb is really wiped...
Creating new partition table on /dev/sdb...
Creating target partition...
Making system realize that partition table has changed...
Wait 3 seconds for block device nodes to populate...
Cluster size has been automatically set to 4096 bytes.
Creating NTFS volume structures.
mkntfs completed successfully. Have a nice day.
--2022-01-22 23:37:42--  https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/raw/master/res/uefi/uefi-ntfs.img
Resolving github.com (github.com)... pulse
140.82.121.3
Connecting to github.com (github.com)|140.82.121.3|:443... pulse
connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... pulse
302 Found
Location: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pbatard/rufus/master/res/uefi/uefi-ntfs.img [following]
--2022-01-22 23:37:43--  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pbatard/rufus/master/res/uefi/uefi-ntfs.img
Resolving raw.githubusercontent.com (raw.githubusercontent.com)... 185.199.108.133, 185.199.109.133, 185.199.110.133, ...
Connecting to raw.githubusercontent.com (raw.githubusercontent.com)|185.199.108.133|:443... pulse
connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... pulse
200 OK
Length: 1048576 (1.0M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘/tmp/WoeUSB.2xwNoI.tempdir/uefi-ntfs.img’
     0K .......... .......... .......... .........pulse
. ...pulse
.......  4%  469K 2s
    50K .......... .......... .......... .......... .....pulse
.....  9%  558K 2s
   100K .......... .pulse
......... .......... .......... .......... 14% 2.33M 1s
   150K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 19% 2.81M 1s
   200K .......... .......... .........pulse
. .......... .......... 24%  978K 1s
   250K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 29% 3.71M 1s
   300K .......... .......... .....pulse
..... .......... .......... 34% 3.73M 1s
   350K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 39% 6.90M 0s
   400K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 43% 5.82M 0s
   450K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 48% 5.37M 0s
   500K .......... .......... ...pulse
....... .......... .......... 53% 1.39M 0s
   550K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 58% 7.54M 0s
   600K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 63% 5.68M 0s
   650K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 68% 8.23M 0s
   700K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 73% 7.22M 0s
   750K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 78% 11.0M 0s
   800K .......... .......... .......... ...pulse
....... .......... 83% 6.85M 0s
   850K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 87% 7.48M 0s
   900K .......... .......... .......... .......... .....pulse
..... 92%  474K 0s
   950K .......... .pulse
......... .......pulse
... .......... ...pulse
....... 97%  286K 0s
  1000K .......... .......... ....                            100%  198M=0.7s
2022-01-22 23:37:44 (1.43 MB/s) - ‘/tmp/WoeUSB.2xwNoI.tempdir/uefi-ntfs.img’ saved [1048576/1048576]
dd: writing to '/dev/sdb2': No space left on device
1025+0 records in
1024+0 records out
524288 bytes (524 kB, 512 KiB) copied, 0.0808954 s, 6.5 MB/s
The command "dd if="${download_directory}/uefi-ntfs.img" of="${uefi_ntfs_partition}"" failed with exit status "1", program is prematurely aborted
Unmounting and removing "/media/woeusb_source_1642883854_3504"...
You may now safely detach the target device

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Can you get a Windows PC running W7 64 bit or newer?

Then you can use Rufus to create an installer.

[themsovietbois]

i already tried installing windows 7, doesnt boot, i think my CPU doesnt support 7

[Paul_Tikkanen]

No, I meant use another Windows PC running W7 64 bit or newer to create the W10 installation media with Rufus.

Your PC definitely can't run W7.