No Wi-Fi Option After Installing New SSD

[searim11]

I recently ordered a Crucial P5 Plus 1 TB PCIe M.2 2280SS Gaming SSD because I wanted more storage on my laptop. I managed to successfully open up my laptop and put it in. Went through the process of installing Windows 11 onto it using a USB, then got to the set-up page (I intended for it to be a clean install by the way, I don't need to save my old stuff). However, once I got to the part where I had to connect to the internet, it wouldn't give me the option to do anything other than connect with Ethernet.

I tried restarting everything several times but nothing would work. I ended up having to put the old SSD back in and it still works fine, connects to Wi-Fi and everything. Could someone at least help me explain why that particular SSD wouldn't connect to Wi-Fi? Was it the SSD itself or did it somehow install Windows 11 wrong?

Also I don't know if this detail will help at all but all the tutorials I watched online showed a part of the Windows 11 installation process where it would ask for a product key. However, when I did it, it never asked me for that. I didn't really think much of it at the time but maybe it's a clue, who knows.

[banhien]

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@searim11 wrote:

... I tried restarting everything several times but nothing would work. I ended up having to put the old SSD back in and it still works fine, connects to Wi-Fi and everything. Could someone at least help me explain why that particular SSD wouldn't connect to Wi-Fi? Was it the SSD itself or did it somehow install Windows 11 wrong?

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@searim11 

1. It won't ask for product key because  Windows 11 product key is in BIOS of your machine already.

2. Old SSD has wifi adapter driver and new SSD does NOT. Now you are using old SSD, please use Device Manager to see what is the wifi adapter and its working driver then download it to elsewhere (USB drive for example). Then apply driver on new SSD.

Regards.

[searim11]

Thank you deeply for the explanation, that makes a lot of sense. However, I can't seem to figure out how or where to download the driver from.

The name of the adaptor in device manager is Realtek RTL8852AE WiFi 6 802.11ax PCIe Adapter. I tried looking on Realtek's website but couldn't find it. Am I doing something wrong here?