Intel VMD Driver Windows 11

How to Disable the Intel VMD Driver on Windows 11?

Intel VMD Driver is required on 11th Generation Intel CPU platforms to manage RAID and Intel Optane memory volumes, and is often tailored by system manufacturers according to specific system design needs.

If Windows cannot locate drives during installation, this post from MiniTool Partition Wizard outlines four solutions to remedy it.

How to Download Intel VMD Driver Windows 11?

So, to download the latest version of Intel VMD Driver Windows 11. We shared the official Intel VMD Driver Windows 11 to download. Follow the instructions to download the Intel VMD Driver Windows 11.

1. Locate the download link URL on this page.
2. Click to begin the process of download.
3. Your download will begin automatically after a few seconds.
4. Wait until the download completes.

How to Install The Driver on Windows?

As part of the Windows installation process, loading the VMD driver for RAID or Intel Optane memory volume will help prevent Windows from labeling it as an invalid device in the operating system. The installer should load this driver during Windows setup since this won’t happen automatically by OS.

To do this, first, ensure the BIOS is configured correctly for your platform. To do this, access BIOS configuration while the computer is off – use either hotkey [F7] or mouse to select your options.

Before proceeding with the installation process, download and extract the IRST driver from your model of the computer’s product support page. When finished, move it into an RST folder on your computer for easy reference – feel free to name this folder whatever you like – for this article’s sake, we will simply refer to it as such.

Now, connect the USB stick on which you extracted drivers to the target computer and boot up. Start the Windows operating system installation process when asked for destination disk drives – select where you extracted the IRST driver before clicking the Load Driver button and following the on-screen instructions to install the driver. When finished, you should now be able to see your drives within Windows.

1. Locate the downloaded file on your download history.
2. Run the installer.
3. Follow the instructions.
4. Continue the installation.

More Information About Driver Installation

If you own an MSI laptop with an Intel VMD driver installed, and experience difficulty when trying to access hard drives during Windows setup, the IRST driver may help by showing disks or RAID arrays during this process.

Download and extract the IRST driver from the product support page of your model, then move the folder onto a USB drive before connecting it to your computer. At Windows’ prompt asking where you would like to install, select “Load driver.”

Now, when installing Windows, your hard drive should appear during setup and you can continue with installation. If it does not, try disabling the VMD controller in BIOS; this should solve the issue.

If your Windows 11 installation is having difficulties starting, this could be due to this issue. In such a situation, try cloning your hard drive or creating a backup with MiniTool Partition Wizard; this reliable PC cloning and partition management software works on both PCs and Mac computers to manage SSDs, HDDs, and USB drives as well as create bootable USBs from image files for restores of systems from backup.

Disable VMD

If you don’t want the Intel VMD feature on your system, disabling it is simple – this guide outlines how you can do so with Windows 11. However, please be aware that this method only works on systems that had the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) driver installed during installation process or else they may experience an Inaccessible Boot Device blue screen error when rebooting into Windows.

Skylake-SP processors equipped with Intel VMD controllers feature advanced enterprise-grade features for managing NVMe SSDs connected directly to the CPU, unlike RAID on the CPU which does not affect NVMe SSDs even when enabled; Intel VMD provides features that enhance uptime and serviceability by redirecting insertion/removal events directly to storage-aware drivers and improving uptime and serviceability by redirecting them away from CPU resources.

Intel VMD provides an improved solution for handling events on traditional PCIe SSDs by standardizing LED status light activation on NVMe SSDs – making it easier for administrators to locate drives during hardware maintenance.

To check if the Intel VMD driver is installed, run the lspci command in a virtual machine (VM). Once enabled, this output will display new devices that correspond to NVMe SSDs as well as their HBA controller ID, listed as “vmhba#” when used within VMware ESXi hosts.

Uninstall

If your system contains RST (Intel Optane Memory) but you no longer wish to use it, follow these steps to disable it. Be sure to back up any relevant files first as following these instructions will change BIOS settings so Intel VMD is disabled and Windows will switch over to booting from AHCI rather than RST Premium. For any issues regarding this guide or this process please reach out directly to the vendor of your system.

If your laptop uses an Intel CPU platform, installing Windows 11/10 may prove challenging when RST option is set in BIOS. To combat this issue, load IRST driver during the Windows setup process as explained here: How to load an AHCI driver during the Microsoft Windows Setup Process.

This method works on multiple platforms.

Conclusion

So, thank you for downloading the latest version of Intel VMD Driver Windows 11. We shared the official Intel VMD Driver Windows 11 to download free on Windows.