Examkin

Question

Difficulty: MediumOS Installation and Upgrade Methods

A field technician is performing a clean installation of Windows 11 on a workstation equipped with a hardware RAID storage controller. During the setup process, the installer reaches the disk selection screen ("Where do you want to install Windows?"), but no storage volumes are detected or displayed. The technician verifies that the RAID volume is configured correctly and reported as healthy within the controller BIOS. Which of the following is the best step for the technician to take to make the target drive visible to the Windows installer?

  1. Select the Load driver option on the disk selection screen and supply the specific controller drivers via a USB drive.Answer
  2. B
    Open the Command Prompt using Shift+F10 and execute the convert gpt command on Disk 0.
  3. C
    Recreate the bootable USB media using Windows 11 Enterprise installation ISO media instead of Windows 11 Pro.
  4. D
    Cancel clean setup and boot into the existing operating system to perform an in-place upgrade.

Answer

The technician should select the Load driver option on the partition selection screen and load the appropriate RAID storage controller driver from an external USB drive.
When performing an OS installation on systems with hardware RAID controllers or specialized storage host adapters, the standard Windows Setup image may lack native inbox drivers for the controller. Selecting the Load driver prompt on the 'Where do you want to install Windows?' screen allows the technician to browse to external media (such as a USB drive) and load the manufacturer's storage controller driver, making the target disk array visible for partitioning and installation.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the cause of missing storage drives during Windows Setup.
Recognize that Windows Setup lacks generic inbox drivers for the hardware RAID storage controller.
When Windows setup cannot communicate with the storage host bus adapter, connected drives are not enumerated.
2
Obtain and prepare the storage controller drivers.
Copy the uncompressed driver files (.inf, .sys, .cat) to a flash drive.
Windows Setup requires direct access to driver INF files during the setup GUI stage.
3
Load the driver within Windows Setup.
Click Load driver on the disk selection screen, browse to the USB media, select the driver, and complete driver initialization.
Loading the driver enables the setup wizard to recognize the storage controller and display available RAID volumes for installation.

Key Concept

Mass Storage Controller Driver Loading During Windows Installation
Estimated Time:1m 15s
Rate this question

Topics

OS Installation and Upgrade Methods

More questions from this topic