Detecting an NVMe SSD with the Intel Rapid Storage Driver During Windows 11 Setup on a Dell Vostro

Last updated: Oct 28, 2024

I finally installed Windows 11 on my Dell Vostro laptop that I use for work. Rest assured, I'm still using Linux, dual boot forever ❤️…

I knew that Microsoft had put a lot of effort into device recognition with the latest Windows versions, so I was a little surprised when, during installation, it was unable to detect my NVMe drive correctly.

So here's a look at how to load the storage driver under Windows 11 so that yiou can detect and install the operating system on an NVMe drive.

Last but not leat: the exact model of my PC is a Dell vostro 14 5410.

Downloading and extracting the driver

Go to the official Dell website: https://www.dell.com/support/ and download the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver:

Download page for Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver for Dell Vostro 14 5410 with Windows 11 OS selected — **Dell Vostro** driver download page

Extract the driver to a folder on the Windows 11 USB flash drive:

Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver Dell Update Package with Extract option highlighted

For example, in a DELL folder:

Screenshot showing the folder structure of the Windows 11 installation media with the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver located in the DELL folder.

Load Intel Rapid Storage driver

Once our USB flash drive has been properly prepared, we can now move on to installing Windows 11.

On the Select location to install Windows 11 page, we can see that no drive appears. Click on Load Driver:

Windows 11 setup screen prompting the user to select a location to install with the 'Load Driver' option highlighted

On the Install driver to show hardware page, click on Browse:

Windows 11 setup screen for installing drivers, with the 'Browse' button highlighted to select the folder containing the NVMe driver for disk detection on a Dell Vostro.

Select the VMD folder in the previously copied DELL folder and click on OK:

Windows 11 setup window displaying the folder selection dialog, with the VMD driver folder highlighted and the OK button selected to load the NVMe driver for a Dell Vostro.

Select the Intel RST VMD Controller driver and click on Install:

Windows 11 setup screen with the Intel RST VMD Controller driver selected and the 'Install' button highlighted to enable NVMe disk detection on a Dell Vostro.

Now that our disk has been correctly detected, we can continue with the installation of Windows 11:

Windows 11 setup screen displaying Disk 0 as unallocated space after NVMe driver installation, ready for partitioning and OS installation on a Dell Vostro.