BIOS setting that hides internal HDD if booted by USB?

Omegaman007 · 20 Feb 2023

I have a fully operation Dell Latitude 5330 with Windows 10 Enterprise OS. I created recovery media (on a USB drive) with this device and then booted the system up with the recovery media. I went into troubleshooting and command prompt and the only drive visible (checked with Diskpart) is the USB drive. The recovery system does not see the internal HDD at all. So my question is:

Is there a security setting in BIOS that can hide the internal drive if it's booted from an external USB device? If so how do I disable it if I need to use the recovery environment?

BTW, the system boots up normal as always when I pull the USB recovery media out, so it's not a hardware or OS issue that just happened to occur when I tried this.

Thanks!

hsehestedt · 20 Feb 2023

This happens because the storage driver needed to access your drives is not included by default with Windows.

The most likely culprit is that you probably have your HD access configuration in the BIOS set to RAID rather than AHCI (even if you are not using RAID). IMPORTANT: Don't simply change that setting. Once the drives are formatted in that configuration, you cannot simply change the setting.

If my guess is correct, then the solution is to copy the Intel IRST drivers to the recovery disk, and then load that driver at the point where it would detect drives. Note that this driver must be expanded (not just an EXE or ZIP file) so that the individual files including the .INF are accessible.

hsehestedt · 20 Feb 2023

From the Dell web site, downloads for your system:

BIOS setting that hides internal HDD if booted by USB?-image1.jpg

hsehestedt · 20 Feb 2023

Sorry, one more thing:

After downloading that driver, run it and then choose to extract the files as shown below. Do not select "Install".

BIOS setting that hides internal HDD if booted by USB?-image2.jpg

SIW2 · 20 Feb 2023

mount the bootable wim file from the recovery media

integrate the drivers from the F6 folder

save the updated image

unmount the image.

easiest to use dism++

https://github.com/Chuyu-Team/Dism-M...0.1.1002.1.zip

Omegaman007 · 20 Feb 2023

hsehestedt said:

.....
The most likely culprit is that you probably have your HD access configuration in the BIOS set to RAID rather than AHCI (even if you are not using RAID). .....

hsehestedt, you are correct, it is set to RAID.

hsehestedt said:

.....
If my guess is correct, then the solution is to copy the Intel IRST drivers to the recovery disk, and then load that driver at the point where it would detect drives. ....

OK, I can extract the drivers but am unclear on the how to do the part in bold when booting into the recovery environment. Is the process what SIW2 describes? If so, it's not something that I've done before. Perhaps I'm being naive, but since I created the recovery media with that exact computer and included "system files", or whatever the only option given to me was, shouldn't the recovery media have that driver? Seems like a big oversight and could certainly be a nasty surprise to someone who's trying to get their OS back up and running. The drive is a Samsung PM991a if that matters.

Thank you so much for your insight and help!

SIW2 · 21 Feb 2023

Omegaman007 said:

Is the process what SIW2 describes? If so, it's not something that I've done before.

It is a long time since I looked at the recovery drive thing. From memory, winre.wim is copied to the sources folder on the recovery stick and renamed to boot.wim.

That is the bootable wim file you want to mount.

SCREENSHOTS-How to integrate drivers into a wim with dism++

hsehestedt · 21 Feb 2023

SIW2 said:

It is a long time since I looked at the recovery drive thing. From memory, winre.wim is copied to the sources folder on the recovery stick and renamed to boot.wim.

That is the bootable wim file you want to mount.

SCREENSHOTS-How to integrate drivers into a wim with dism++

Actually, boot.wim are two different animals. Boot.wim contains Windows PE (Preinstall Environment) which is what is run when a Windows installation takes place. Winre.wim contains Windows RE (Recovery Environment).

The boot.wim file is found in the \sources folder of the Windows installation media while the winre.wim can be found within the install.wim file (much like nesting a ZIP file within another ZIP file).

While WinPE and WinRE are different, there are a lot of similarities. Companies like Macrium Reflect allow you to choose the option to create their recovery disks with a choice of WinPE or WinRE, each with its own set of advantages.

SIW2 · 21 Feb 2023

A bootable wim can have any name as long as that is reflected in the bcd entry.

In the standard MS windows installation media the file called boot.wim has 2 images and the file called winre.wim has one. The thing downloaded via adk is called winpe.wim. They are all winpe, but they don't have exactly the same contents.

That does not mean that every file called boot.wim has 2 images. It also does not necessarily contain the setup files.

I am not sure why ms copies winre.wim to recovery disc/usb and renames it to boot.wim

It means they do not have to change the bcd entry that is in the default bcd template, but that is easily done.

It is quite common.

Most programs that create recovery media name the bootable wim file boot.wim - irrespective of whether they use winre.wim or winpe.wim or installation media boot .wim as the source ( macrium, aomei, diskgenius, etc have a bootable wim file called boot.wim which contains only one image )

hsehestedt · 21 Feb 2023

Maybe that's done because it's just plain easier to rename one file rather than muck with the bcd entry. I have no idea, but I wonder if MS has any sort of suggested guidance on this.