i have decided to expand apon my last post. I said it was easy... but the hardware install was the only easy part. my system came with Intel Rapid Storage bios drivers version 15. but the onboard driver got upgraded to version 16. onboard drivers existing in the system firmware need to match the version used by the factory recovery software. and MSI has not provided a way to update that part of the software for us. which means you can try to use it as is, but will encounter a BSOD during the recovery mode as soon as it goes to access anything on the drive (this includes my old SSD as well). the software version *DOES* get upgraded if you use the copy of the factory recovery thats stored on the HDD. but the new driver does not get transferred over if you try to make a new copy of the recovery files (as an .ISO or a flash drive). to get around this, you need to do a little editing of the recovery files BEFORE you ever need to use them. in my case my system was down for the count when i need to do a factory recovery, so i was really up sh!t creek with out a paddle. anyways.... the process is sort straight forward if you know what to do. You need to download the intel RST f6 drivers and extract them to a folder. then (if you don't already have it installed, install it.) use 7-Zip to open the winRE.wim on the factory recovery files (in my case it was on a usb flash drive.) the you need to browse the file and find the intel RST files. then you need to rename them (for backup purposes) and copy the files from the extracted f6 drivers over to the file using 7zip. you might need to rename the files slightly, so they match the original versions naming as the recovery software has no way of looking for the files if the names do not match exactly. once you finished, you can close 7-zip (and the WinRE.wim file) and then you are ready to reboot and use the recovery files with your system. there does not seem to be a way to downgrade to a lower version of the RST drivers residing on the firmware. So, if the RST version gets upgraded, and you suddenly find yourself unable to do a factory restore, this is likely the cause. One thing i liked about the factory recovery mode, is that even though my system did not come with an intel optane module, once it was installed, the next time i had to do a factory restore, the restore software recognized it's presence and setup my HDD for acceleration during the recovery stage. I also had to ensure the new NVME drive was properly formatted before the recovery software would work on the drive. the new 4Tb drive came to me completely blank, no partition, no formatting, or anything else. so my system threw a little fit over that when i tried to set everything back up using the factory recovery software.
