Strix G18 2024 SSD Driver

[NickT]

Im trying to do a clean install off a Windows 11 usb drive created with the Windows Media Creation Tool. I get as far as selecting the Drive to Install Windows 11 to and it doe not list a Drive.  Drive is missing. Model NVMe WD PC SN5000S SDEQNSJ-1T00-1002. Which seems to be a Western Digital Drive. I updated the Firmware on the driver via MyAsus back about 3 months ago when I got this drive.

Any suggestions?

thanks!

[ElectroStingz · Accepted solution]

Hello,

You have 2 options.

1) Enter the BIOS and disable the VMD setting, this will then allow the Windows Installer to detect the drive.

This is easiest method.

2) Download the Intel VMD driver, copy it to your Windows USB drive. Then when you get to this part where it shows the drive list, click on the "Load driver" button. And then choose the folder where you just copied the VMD driver.

Requires the driver to be extracted then copied to the Windows USB drive in a new folder.

What happened previously as you have some older posts with the same issue?

[NickT]

The laptop started crashing with memory dumps. And I forgot that I need the driver for the intel SSD. Thank you for the reply.

[Skiatook]

Have you tried Intel Driver Support Assistant.  Google it.

[NickT]

That would only work if the laptop was already up and running when I need the driver. I do indeed use the intel driver updater. Thx.

[ElectroStingz]

If you go for option 2 you can download the VMD driver from ASUS, support / downloads for your laptop model. This is dated 2023 so it will not be the most recent driver, should work and once in Windows it will probably do some updates when online.

Or you can download the driver from Intel, it's dated 2026 but requires a little more effort to extract the driver.

ASUS Driver method, Download this for your laptop model.

Run the installer on any working computer but make sure you choose the extract option.

Once it finishes it will take you to the folder location, just copy this IRST folder to your Windows Installer USB drive.

And click the load driver button when you get there, choose the IRST folder from your USB drive.

[ElectroStingz]

Intel VMD driver method

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/849936/intel-rapid-storage-technology-driver-instal...

Download The Intel RST setup file.

Assuming your using a Windows PC this will end up in your Downloads folder, leave it there.

Open a command prompt, open the startmenu and type CMD.

This should open.

[Type]

CD Downloads

[press enter]

It should now look like this

[Type]

SetupRST.exe -extractdrivers SetupRST_extracted

[press enter]

It will run the Intel setup and extract the files, happens within a few seconds.

Go to your Downloads folder and you should see the SetupRST_extracted folder.

Double click on the folder and folder within that folder until you end up here, VMD folder.

Copy this VMD folder to your Windows installer USB drive and when you get to the part in the setup, "load driver" choose the VMD folder

[M0NG0]

Press Shift + F10 when you see the Windows Setup screen
This will open the command prompt
In CMD window type "List disk" press enter
It will list all disk
Choose the disk that was missing by typing
"select disk #" # being the disk number
It will respond # is now the selected disk
Type "Clean" press enter
It will respond disk is now clean
Reboot and go back to your image recovery