Windows 10 Installer cannot find Intel SSD 900p

[MTrnk]

I'm trying to install Windows 10 Pro 64bit on my new PC, but the installer cannot find my Intel Optane SSD 900p.

The installer first says "A media driver your computer needs is missing". I've downloaded the Client NVMe* Microsoft Windows* Drivers for Intel® SSDs from https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27518/Client-NVMe-Microsoft-Windows-Drivers-for-Intel-SSDs?product=123626 here and provided it to the installer on a flash drive. It detects the driver and seems to install it. After installing the driver however, the installer says "No new devices were found" (see picture).

Where can I find the correct driver?

System details:

• Motherboard: ASUS X299 Deluxe (lastest BIOS installed)
• CPU: Intel i9-7960X
• Memory: 8 x 8GB DDR4 (PC4-33000 4133MHz)
• Disk: Intel Optane SSD 900p (480GB)
• Graphics: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080Ti

[idata]

Hello misotrnka,

Thank you for contacting Intel® Technical Support. As we understand, you need assistance with your Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series (480GB). If we infer correctly we will appreciate if you can provide us with the following information:

• Is the Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series (480GB) detected by your BIOS?
• Please, provide us with further information regarding your BIOS configuration.
• Have you tried with a different Windows installation media? Since this issue could be caused by a modified or corrupted Windows installation media.

We will be looking forward to your reply.Best regards,Josh B.Intel® Customer Support TechnicianUnder Contract to Intel Corporation

[MTrnk]

Hi,

Thank you for looking into this. Yes, you understand correctly, the issue is with Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series (480GB). I want to use it as my primary drive and I'm trying to install Windows 10 Pro 64-bit on it.

Here are the answers to your questions:

• Is the Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series (480GB) detected by your BIOS?

The BIOS seems to recognize the SSD, because in Advanced tab I can see item named INTEL SSDPED1D480GA-PHMB746300JD480DGN.

• Please, provide us with further information regarding your BIOS configuration.

Most settings in BIOS were left in their defaults. The SATA Mode Selection is set to AHCI.

• Have you tried with a different Windows installation media? Since this issue could be caused by a modified or corrupted Windows installation media.

I've created a fresh bootable flash drive from ISO downloaded from Microsoft yesterday. It is not modified in any way and besides not detecting my SSD it doesn't seem to be corrupted.

-

What I have tried so far:

• Changing the PCIe slot of the 900P AIC.
• Trying all possible combinations of different settings, such as enabling RST instead of AHCI, setting the PCIe slot configuration to PCIE SSD X4 Card (VROC)
• and many others.

Nothing works. I'm completely lost now.

[JosafathB_Intel]

Hello misotrnka,

Thank you for your reply and the information provided.

As we understand you have already changed the BIOS settings to AHCI in UEFI mode and you are still experiencing the same issue, at the moment of trying to install your OS after downloading the https://downloadmirror.intel.com/27518/eng/Client-x64.zip Client-x64 zip file, unzipping the file to a folder, copying this folder to a USB thumb drive getting into the Windows* set up process and after installing the driver, the installer says "No new devices were found" just like the images below:

After this, you had tried different Windows installation images as part of your troubleshooting and got the same result.

If we inferred correctly please provide us with your SSD markings (SA and serial number) in order to get more information about your product.

We will be looking forward to your reply.

Best regards,

Josh B.

Intel® Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[idata]

Hello misotrnka,

Thank you for having contacted Intel Technical Support. We have not heard from you since our last communication and we would like to know if you need further assistance or if we can close this case? Important note: Should further assistance or clarification be required, we will greatly appreciate if you reply to this post instead of writing a new one unless your inquiry is completely unrelated. This way we will prevent generating a duplicate post and we will not lose the train of thought. We will be looking forward to your reply.Best regards,Josh B.Intel® Customer Support TechnicianUnder Contract to Intel Corporation

[MTrnk · Accepted solution]

Finally found what the problem was, so I would like to document it here for future generations 🙂

I had Windows 10 installation medium (USB stick) created in Mac OS using Etcher. It turns out that while it can boot and the installer seems to work correctly, it doesn't create UEFI bootable drive. For some reason, W10 installer created in this way is unable to detect the Intel SSD 900p, no matter what you do.

The solution is simple: create the installation medium in some other way. Bootcamp didn't work for me, because I only wanted to create the installation USB stick on Mac, but then I would install Windows on a different computer. I haven't find any other tool for Mac OS, so I created a Ubuntu Live Drive and then used a tool called 'woeusb' to create a proper installation USB from Windows ISO image. Now everything works.