I’ve got a custom-built PC that’s definitely capable of running Windows 11. A while back, I made a bootable USB installer for Windows 11 and kept it ready. When I originally built the PC with a different motherboard and moved my old NVMe drives over, I noticed that the drives weren’t showing any info properly in the BIOS. I planned to just format them later, so I didn’t dig deeper. Now, I’m on the latest BIOS with Secure Boot and firmware TPM (PTT) enabled. Today, I tried installing Windows by formatting the drives, but the installer only recognized my USB installer and not the NVMe drives. It said Windows couldn’t be installed on those drives, and I think it was because VMD (Intel Volume Management Device) was enabled. After disabling VMD and resetting CMOS, I found that the drives had gotten switched to RAID mode, so I disabled that. But now every time I boot from the USB to install Windows, I get an error saying my PC doesn’t meet minimum requirements, even though it should. To make matters worse, trying to boot into my existing Windows after disabling VMD leads to a BSOD reporting an inaccessible boot device. I’m really stuck and not sure how to fix this. Any ideas?
4 Answers
Since you mentioned Intel VMD causing trouble, it’s good you disabled it because Windows installs can get confused when VMD is turned on unless you provide special drivers during setup. But keep in mind that switching between RAID mode and AHCI or disabling VMD without adjusting Windows drivers can cause boot errors like your BSOD. You might need to set SATA operation mode to AHCI and possibly perform a clean install after wiping the drives to avoid legacy driver conflicts.
Also, double-check in BIOS where your NVMe drives are showing up. If they’re missing or showing under RAID only, Windows installer often won’t see them properly. Resetting BIOS and making sure drives are in the right mode (usually AHCI) can help the installer detect them. If the installer still complains about minimum specs, verify that settings like Secure Boot and TPM are actually active and that the boot media is created correctly for UEFI boot.
Make sure that Compatibility Support Module (CSM) is disabled and TPM is enabled in your BIOS. Usually, the TPM setting should be set to firmware version, not a discrete chip. On Asus boards, this TPM option goes by PTT (Platform Trust Technology) instead of TPM directly. This setup is important for Windows 11 requirements and proper booting.
About the inaccessible boot device error after disabling VMD, Windows might still be expecting those VMD drivers to access the NVMe drives. If you can’t boot, and safe mode doesn’t work, you might have to reinstall Windows after resetting everything in BIOS to AHCI mode and disabling raid and VMD. Backing up any important data first is key if possible.
