FIX: We couldn’t find any drives to install Windows 10/11 on HP Laptop. (Solved)

If you try to clean install Windows 10 or Windows 11 on your HP laptop and the Windows Setup wizard cannot find a disk to install Windows with error-message “We couldn’t find any drives. To get a storage driver, click Load driver”, continue reading below to fix the problem.

Cause: When trying to install Windows 10/11 on an HP laptop with an 11th Gen Intel processor (Tiger lake CPU ) and an Intel M.2 Optane Solid State Drive (SSD), you get the message that “no disks were found to install Windows”, because the Windows installation media doesn’t contain the required driver to recognize the storage controller, specifically the Intel Rapid Storage drivers.

To fix the problem, you must load the missing storage drivers so that Windows Setup can detect your drive/disk and continue the Windows 10/11 installation. Detailed instructions on how to do this can be found below.

How to FIX: Can’t Install Windows 10/11, because Windows Setup Cannot Find any Drives to Install Windows on HP Laptops.

Step 1. Create a USB Windows Installation Media.

If you don’t own a Windows Installation Media on a USB disk, proceed and create one by following the corresponding instructions from these articles:

• How to Create a Windows 11 USB Installation Media
• How to Create a Windows 10 USB Installation Media

Step 2. Download Intel Rapid Storage VDM Drivers.

1. Navigate to Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Driver download page.

2. Click Download F6flpy-x64 – VMD.zip.

3. When the download is completed copy the downloaded zip file to your USB Windows Installation Media.

4. Then right-click on the F6flpy-x64 – VMD.zip file and choose Extract Here to extract it inside the USB drive.

5. After extracting the ZIP file you should have a new folder inside the USB installation media named “F6flpy-x64 (Intelχ VMD) “

6. Unplug the USB drive and use it to install Windows on the affected machine as instructed at the next step.

Step 3. Install Windows using the Intel RST VDM Drivers.

1. Boot the affected machine from the modified USB Windows 10/11 Installation media.

2. Click Next at the first screen, then click Install Now and then Accept the License Terms.

3. At the next screen choose Custom Install.

4. At “Where do you want to install Windows?” screen, click Load driver.

5. Click Browse at Load driver window.

6. From the USB drive, select the “F6flpy-x64 (Intelχ VMD)” folder and click OK.

7. Select the Intel RST VMD Controller and select Next.

8. Normally now, you should be able to see the drive with its partitions.* Select one by one all the partitions and choose Delete.

* Note: If you don’t see the drive at this point, read the Additional Help at the end of this article.

9. When all the disk space becomes Unallocated, click the Next button and continue to Windows installation.

* Additional Help.
If Windows cannot “see” the drive using the Intel RST drivers as described above, do the following:

1. Navigate to HP Laptop Software & Drivers Download page.
2. Type your Laptop’s serial number and click Submit to navigate to the Software and Drivers pages for your product
3. Under Driver select Storage and download the Intel RST driver (RAID) driver.
4. Copy the downloaded “spxxxxxx” file to your USB Windows installation media.
5. Right-click on the file, select Extract to, to extract its contents to the USB drive.
6. Follow the steps 1-5 above and at step-6 (Browse for Folder), open the “spxxxxxx” folder , then open the “F6” folder, select the “VMD” folder and click OK.
7. After the disk is recognized, follow the steps 8 & 9 above to continue to Windows installation.

That’s all folks! Did it work for you?
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