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Trying to fresh install Windows onto ~3 year old Dell Precision 3541, which has an NVME drive

Windows 11 on bootable USB, made on separate occasions via dd and Dell OS recovery tool. Tried multiple USB2 sticks, and a USB3 stick, different ports.

Boots fine, gets to install Windows bit, pick language/region etc.. Then "No device drivers were found"

I've tried Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver unzipped onto separate USB, and making Windows installer load those, but after thinking for a while it still says "No new device drivers were found" :(

Bios SATA setting is AHCI, SecureBoot off, oh also latest BIOS installed

Installing Ubuntu onto the machine/drive was no problem at all, just Windows having troubles

Service tag: 98WVYY2 https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-au/product-support/servicetag/0-V2Y1RUFucWh2cnZ6K3IrK2ljN0NIdz090/drivers

More attempts:

  1. Booting off Hiren's Boot CD (WinPE) works, "Disk Management" can see and interact with the drive...
  2. DISKPART run from installation media can see and interact with the drive...

I'm so baffled, and thank you in advance for help

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    It usually means Windows installer does not have the driver to "see" the NVMe drive. Usually you can just Load driver, and then Windows can then find the drive... have you tried putting Windows 10 on it and see if Win10 supports the NVMe drives out of the box
    – Darius
    Commented Jun 8, 2022 at 8:52
  • Thank you Darius, I've tried installing Win10 from USB with the same result. I agree with you, it's something to do with the driver, but installing every driver from Dell seems to do nothing. And yet, WinPE can see my drive, and so can DISKPART. So confused.
    – Stephen2
    Commented Jun 8, 2022 at 9:23
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    Contact Dell and get the Dell Recovery USB. Use that and it will work.
    – anon
    Commented Jun 8, 2022 at 11:17
  • Windows 11 requires Secure Boot to be enabled and CSM to be disabled. The error you suggests that the installation media doesn’t support UEFI mode. I would skip Windows 11 due to the age of your hardware.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jun 8, 2022 at 11:32
  • You might be able to create your own Dell recovery and restore USB dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-au/000125230/… there is a link there - provide your service tag - and they'll give you a file to create your own recovery USB.
    – Darius
    Commented Jun 9, 2022 at 0:44

1 Answer 1

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Using the Media Creation Tool to create the install USB worked.

https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11?linkId=168858776 -> "Create Windows 11 Installation Media"

I guess it was somehow different than the various other ways I tried, even though they all booted and ran the install.

Thank you to everyone who helped.

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