Windows: how to install driver from recovery command prompt?

Question

I'm trying to enable Intel SRT on my laptop. To do this, I need to change SATA controller mode from AHCI to RAID. The problem is that windows has no drivers for RAID and I can't install it while controller is in AHCI mode.

For now I have RAID driver in INF package (inf, sys, cat files). And I can load Windows recovery console with controller in RAID mode. The last thing to do is to intall this driver, but I don't know how to do it.

Google says rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 123 <filename>.inf might help, but it doesn't.

Solution 1

use pnputil to add the driver to the driver store. Windows now detects the driver:

pnputil.exe -a C:\<filename>.INF 

And you should add the drivers before changing the mode.

Solution 2

For me pnputil.exe did not do the trick. However, I found the following command, which helped: dism /Image:C:\ /Add-Driver /Driver:D:\ /Recurse. This assumes that your Windows is installed at C:\ and the disk with the driver is present at D:\. This appears to even work, if the disk contains drivers for different architectures (x86 and x64) and operating system versions (XP, 7, ...).

Comments

[mgoetzke]

drvload.exe <filename>.inf worked fine for me in windows 10 Link: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/deskto‌​p/…

[Oleg Titov]

Thanks for the help. Still have BSOD after controller mode change. Guess, this drivers should be mirrired on windows boot partition or something like that...

[magicandre1981]

can you change the Mode back to AHCI, boot to Windows and install the driver there?

[Oleg Titov]

Yes, But it does not help. Intel's GUI installer installs only AHCI since no RAID is present, and using .inf I have BSOD.

[magicandre1981]

In Device manager select "add legacy device" and select the Intel RAID driver here. Now reboot and change the mode again.

[Oleg Titov]

when pointing to the folder with intel drivers nothing happens. I guess, because this drivers already installed in the system... Still BSOD after reboot with RAID mode.

[Oleg Titov]

Damn it! Safe mode boots normally with RAID mode. Further installation via normal graphical installer make posiible to boot without safe mode. So the real problem is solved.

[iambr]

justed tested for a z390 motherboard windows7x64, works perfectly!

[nijave]

Does this add the driver to the installed Windows driver store or the driver store of the stripped down recovery environment? I would think without telling it where to find the Windows installation it just installs it to the recovery environment

[boussouira]

Works perfectly for virtualbox install of Windows 7 x86 imported to Proxmox