Recap: AMD graphics card customers have been reporting situations of driver installations utterly bricking their Home windows installs since mid-February. Regardless of the stories popping up on a number of social media retailers and boards, no official assertion concerning the difficulty was ever made. AMD has now stepped ahead and admitted that they have been capable of reproduce the difficulty, figuring out the Adrenalin driver package deal’s “Manufacturing unit Reset” choice as the primary subject.
The difficulty, which was initially reported earlier this 12 months, was suspected to be a bug within the current Adrenalin 23.2.1 driver package deal. AMD customers who had been unlucky sufficient to come across the difficulty would try to put in the drivers, solely to be met with an inaccessible boot drive error upon restart. As soon as encountered, affected customers had two selections: try to revive to an earlier restore level, or utterly reinstall Home windows.
PCWorld editor Brad Chacos has been investigating the difficulty and dealing intently with AMD to determine and resolve it for the reason that first stories trickled in. In a current article, Chacos reported that AMD formally acknowledged the difficulty, discovering a flaw that would outcome within the inaccessible boot state of affairs when utilizing the software program’s “Manufacturing unit Reset” choice throughout driver set up.
“We now have reproduced a problem that may happen in an especially small variety of situations if a PC replace happens throughout the set up of AMD Software program: Adrenalin Version, and we’re actively investigating. We advocate customers guarantee all system updates are utilized or paused earlier than putting in the driving force, and that the “Manufacturing unit Reset” choice is unchecked throughout the AMD driver set up course of. We’re dedicated to resolve points as rapidly as doable and strongly encourage customers to submit points with AMD Software program: Adrenalin Version by way of the Bug Report Instrument.”
Based on the article, AMD is actively investigating the difficulty, which has been discovered to be extraordinarily uncommon and onerous to breed. No matter how uncommon it could be, the potential for a botched working system set up and lack of information isn’t a promising chance. Luckily, there’s a very simple workaround: merely do not examine the “Manufacturing unit Reset” field throughout the Adrenalin set up course of.
Whereas many customers could by no means examine the characteristic’s field, there are a variety who use it to clear previous information and guarantee a clear driver set up. All customers ought to train warning when utilizing the “Manufacturing unit Reset” characteristic till a repair is carried out. Those that use it to carry out a clear set up and clear any legacy driver recordsdata can fall again to a different well-known graphics driver removing device, Show Driver Uninstalller (DDU). This system is offered for Home windows 7 by way of to Home windows 11 and can be utilized to take away all traces of AMD, Nvidia, or Intel graphics drivers.
The bug is extraordinarily uncommon, and lots of customers (myself included) have put in the newest driver packages utilizing the reset characteristic with out subject. That does not imply it would not exist, and making certain the “Manufacturing unit Reset” field is unchecked is an especially straightforward step to make sure you do not turn into one of many affected customers earlier than AMD can remediate the difficulty.