Clean retail Windows 11 installation on N50 640 Nitro, had issue earlier when tried to boot from USB

JN111
JN111 Member Posts: 9

Tinkerer

edited December 2023 in Nitro Gaming

Hello

I am trying to do a clean install of windows 11, I have an USB memory and it boots from the USB, but early in the installation it says it cannot find the drive to install Windows on. I downloaded the Intel driver and copied onto the USB but it still doesnt find the stock SSD to. any advice?

[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

Answers

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,655 Trailblazer
    edited December 2023

    You need to do a Rufus 4.2 and put the Win-11 23H2 version ISO onto this installation boot USB and then go to the N50-640 Acer Drivers & Manuals page and download the "IRST (Intel® Rapid Storage Technology) Driver version 19.2.0.1003" and after you have downloaded this driver, unzip this file and put the unzipped file onto the Win-11 23H2 installation USB.

    Then put the Win-11 installation USB into the N50-640 desktops USB 3.2 port and reboot the desktop, once it boots into the Win-11 installation go through the initial language and keyboard settings etc etc until you get the section at "Where do you want to install Windows > then DELETE all PARTITIONS of the M.2 BOOT drive > then go to LOAD DRIVERS > and then load the IRST driver that is on the USB > as after you do this the M.2 SSD BOOT drive will be recognized and you will be able to continue the Win-11 23H2 version installation, that is all that you have to do for a clean install.

    Make sure that you install all the Windows updates and bios updates for this desktop to version R01-B1 - dated 2023/04/25 - then the Intel updates and the NVidia GPU drivers if you have a GTX1660 SUPER 6GB GDDR6 or an RTX3060 12GB GDDR6 GPU that this desktop can have as a separate GPU. Good luck and hope this helps you out.

    If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

  • JN111
    JN111 Member Posts: 9

    Tinkerer

    hello

    thank you so much for taking your time to reply.
    I get this error when trying to update bios firmware from R01-B0 to the latest R01-B1
    rom file romid is not compatible with existing… etc

    anyway, I did a new Rufus (4.3) with the exact version of Windows 11 you mention, and copied the exact IRST driver onto the USB memory. I do all of your steps, but no drive or partitions shows after loading the driver from the USB memory.
    So the only thing that is different is that Im on the R01-B0 bios version. Any idea how to get the lastest BIOS FW???

    In Bios is also says ec firmware 1.01
    12-03-2021, do I need to update this to? cannot find any info on newer versions on EC FW.

    many thanks, Im going crazy over this.