Windows 10 setup can't find the SSD: Intel VMD and the RST driver

The symptom

During Windows 10 setup, the “Where do you want to install Windows?” screen is empty and says “We couldn't find any drives. To get a storage driver, click Load driver.” Yet the SSD works fine in Linux.

The cause: Intel VMD

On most Intel PCs from 11th gen onwards (Alder Lake, Raptor Lake, Meteor Lake…), the NVMe SSD sits behind the Intel VMD (Volume Management Device) controller, handled by the Intel RST driver (iaStorVD). Linux has this driver; the Windows 10 installer does not. Many BIOSes cannot disable VMD, and doing so can break an existing Windows install.

To check whether your PC is affected, on Linux:

ls /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vmd/

If a device address shows up (for example 10000:e0:06.0), VMD is active.

The manual fix

1. Download the Intel RST installer for your controller and extract the “F6” driver (iaStorVD.inf, .sys, .cat and every file the INF copies);
2. copy them to the install stick;
3. in setup: Load driver → Browse → driver folder.

Common pitfall: if a single file required by the INF is missing, Windows says the driver is “not compatible”.

The automatic fix with linwin

linwin detects VMD and downloads Intel RST 20.2.6.1025 from Intel (pinned SHA-256 checksums) for controllers 467F, A77F, 7D0B and AD0B (12th–14th gen, Core Ultra), or the Microsoft Update Catalog driver for others (for example 9A0B on 11th gen). It adds it:

• to the installer environment, which loads it before looking for disks;
• to the installed Windows, so it can then boot from that SSD.

No BIOS change and no USB stick: see the complete guide.