Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Yoga 900 Windows 10 Clean Install

Edit: This post is now outdated. See these links taken from the comment below:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/28/lenovo_downward_dogs_with_yoga_bios_update_supporting_linux_installs/
http://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/products/Laptops-and-netbooks/Yoga-Series/yoga-900-13isk2/downloads/DS119354

First, I suggest you backup your Yoga 900 disk image in case you need to get back to the original setup. I tried to debug a hardware issue with my old Yoga 2 Pro and Lenovo support insisted I restore from the original recovery. Having the original image lets you do that. I used Macrium Reflect Free to do that. Install it on your Yoga 900 and create a Recovery USB drive. It'll load all the necessary drivers for you. You'll need another drive to store the drive image which will be at least 15 GB from the original install up to the size of your SSD. Since we're in the cleaning up it's a not a bad idea to update your BIOS at the same time. See below for a driver link.

Once you are ready to nuke your drive, you'll need to create Windows 10 Installation Media. Go down to "Need to create a USB, DVD or ISO?" and follow the link. It will help you create an installation USB drive. You'll need a few GB free on the flash drive to create it.

Once you have the Win 10 flash drive you need to make sure you have a few drivers:
For the 13ISK2 I needed to download the Intel Rapid Storage drivers and Intel Wireless drivers from Lenovo. You won't need the wireless drivers until after you get into Windows the first time. You need to extract the Intel Rapid Storage drivers (four times!) to get the .inf files Windows needs during install. It's easiest if you use a program like 7-zip to extract each part. For the Lenovo exe use 7-zip to extract 4 times. You can also extract from the command line, but it's a pain. Google instructions on how to do each extraction if that's what you prefer. Here are the files to extract:
  • (original lenovo.exe) > SetupRST.exe > RST_x64.msi > driver.cab > (driver files including several iaStor files)
Extract the contents of driver.cab to a folder on your Win 10 flash drive.

To boot from USB, shutdown the computer and use the small inset Novo button to turn the computer on. Select Boot Menu and then pick the flash drive you put Win 10 on. The installation will load and Windows won't find the SSD. You have to load the Rapid Storage Drivers after you get into the Win 10 Installation. At that point you press F6 to bring up the driver loading dialog. Point it to the Rapid Storage drivers and wait about 30 seconds for it to load.

From there you can delete all the existing partitions and do a clean install. The 3200x1800 resolution of the Yoga 900 makes this a little awkward, but it's doable. Once you get into Windows for the first time you can point Windows to the wireless drivers. It should be able to find the rest of the drivers from there.


14 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this. I would have never guessed that the RST driver is what was needed to get the hard drive to be listed during a clean OS install. Lenovo needs to package that particular driver separately like other vendors do for doing clean OS loads.

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    2. Similar issue on a Yoga 910 because of the PCIe SSD with Win10 install. Just had to run IRST executable to flash drive, point Win10 to correct folder and then swap back to Win10 flash drive to get her running. Its a little depressing that I had to leave Lenovo site to get the answers, thank you for taking the time to post this information Ram.

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  2. We'll call you "Mr. Yoga 900" from now on. I'll be watching this site often to see what other Yoga 900 tips and tricks you come up with. Thanks!!

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  3. has this worked for anyone else other than 2 people? i have tried multiple versions of the driver but the hard drive is still not seen. Does anything else need to be done?

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  5. great write up but this i no longer needed. Lenovo just release the BIOS update.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/28/lenovo_downward_dogs_with_yoga_bios_update_supporting_linux_installs/

    http://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/products/Laptops-and-netbooks/Yoga-Series/yoga-900-13isk2/downloads/DS119354

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  6. Couldn't find the drivers for the Yoga 900 13ISK2 (with i7-6560U). I've downloaded the Intel Rapid Storage drivers from the lenovo site but don't have see where you can extract the lenovo.exe file. I don't see the file listed anywhere. I can't seem to find any .inf files needed. Do you have any ideas how I can locate the driver information?

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    2. Hope the below link wll help you.

      https://drop.me/MOKjLd

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  7. i cant find the rst driver could you please refresh the link as it is dead?

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    1. Hello Paul,

      Hope the below link will help you.

      https://drop.me/MOKjLd

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  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. When I followed these steps and pointed to the driver files, the drives are still not recognized.. what should I do next ?

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