Intel RST makes SSD disappear in Linux

I use Windows primarily, recently I tried to boot to live Linux USB for some stuff, and noticed that Linux cannot see my NVME SSD, although it can access the SATA SSD just fine.

Then I noticed that, there is a setting called "storage controller mode" in the BIOS. The default was Intel RST, I changed it to AHCI, and voila the SSD can be seen by Linux (shown as nvme0n1).

The most confusing part here is that the SSD uses neither RST nor AHCI, it's a plain and simple NVME SSD. But the SATA HDD remains unaffected. So can anyone explain what's happening here? Does Linux need an RST driver to access the SSD? And why would this setting affect the NVME SSD but not the SATA HDD?

P.S. Changing controller mode corrupts Windows.

Solution 1:

If the Linux installer cannot detect the disk, then before installing Linux, you will switch from RST in the BIOS to AHCI.

To do that:

• Backup your data
• Start Registry Editor, and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorV
• Double-click the Start item, and change its value to 0
• Expand the iaStorV key and click on StartOverride
• Change the value of the item named 0 to be 0
• Repeat this for the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci
• Boot into the BIOS and change the hard disk controller type from RST to AHCI
• Exit BIOS
• Windows should now load normally.