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November 19th, 2023 02:38
Dell G5 5090 Windows Reinstall After Using Linux
I posted about this problem on my XPS 13 9305 (link below)... it seems I have the exact same problem on my G5 5090 desktop.
In summary, these machines came with Windows pre-installed. I installed Linux on them (Ubuntu, Fedora, and Pop!... all work great), but I am unable to reinstall Windows now, specifically because the Windows Setup can't see the SSD.
The obvious answer is to download the Intel RST drivers and use the F6 procedure, which I tried, but Windows Setup does not install them (despite being detected as valid hardware drivers).
I've searched ad nauseam... downloaded the official recovery image from Dell, Windows 10 and 11 ISOs, tried different drives in different ports for the USB drive, tried installing with and without RAID, rolled back to different versions of the BIOS... no luck.
Has anyone else had this problem? Any luck resolving it?
whirlyNerd
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December 2nd, 2023 20:55
I finally got this figured out! Apparently, the only way to reinstall Windows on this computer is to use the Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery "stuff", i.e. the partition set aside for these functions. So when I wiped the drive to install Linux, that functionality was gone and using a standard Windows 10/11 ISO is not supported for a clean install (boo!).
The solution is to start with this article: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000123667/how-to-download-and-use-the-dell-os-recovery-image-in-microsoft-windows. You will have to do this from another Windows computer.
The first difference is to change step 7; you want to download the Automated SupportAssist image. This is much smaller download and basically replaces the SupportAssist partition that came installed from the factory.
Once you get the ISO burned to a USB drive, follow the directions here except you'll press F12 as your computer starts to choose to boot from the USB drive.
Hope this helps others!
Chino de Oro
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8.1K Posts
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November 19th, 2023 08:33
To prepare for Windows installation, perform a data wipe to reset the SSD to factory, using the option in BIOS maintenance. For storage controller, set operation mode to AHCI or AHCI/NVMe, depending on system models.
Otherwise, click here to download the RST driver to a working computer, then double click to launch, select to extract (not install). Put all extracted contents to a FAT32 formatted USB and use the drive to load the driver during Windows installation. Note that Windows installation can not see storage drives connected behind a RAID controller unless proper controller driver is installed.
whirlyNerd
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November 19th, 2023 22:02
I have tried all of this previously, except the drive wipe from BIOS.
Tried the drive wipe and still have the same results. Once going through the F6 process, no new device drivers are found. Here is a (horrible) screenshot:
kompilci
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December 4th, 2023 20:46
@ whirlyNerd are you updated bios ?
(edited)