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I recently posted an answer which got deleted because apparently it doesn't answer the question and should be a comment instead.

Even after discussion with the user who commented on it, is not clear to me, what the problem with the answer is, especially comparing it to some other answers to the same question, which are similarly short. From the discussion, it was suggested that I should change the answer from

In my case, doing a BIOS/UEFI update fixed that error.

to something like

I got exactly the same error when trying to install Windows 11 on some computer. I tried different suggested solutions without success and what fixed it in the end for me, was to do a BIOS/UEFI update.

However, in my view this would only make the answer more verbose without actually adding any relevant information. But maybe I'm wrong here/misunderstanding something?

Note that I don't want to fight the deletion but really would like to understand how I could have done better.

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    You can’t say with a high degree of confidence that updating the firmware would have solved the authors problem because the author of the question gave little to no information. In fact I know it wouldn’t have solved the problem because the author of the question submitted an answer to their own question. The entire problem was Intel RST drivers. You failed to identify this and subsequently submitted an answer that wasn’t related to the author’s problem. It probably shouldn’t have been deleted by the community just downvote for being unhelpful
    – Ramhound
    Commented Aug 29 at 20:35
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    @Ramhound I see, so the question was too specific for my "this resolves the error in some cases, but not necessarily in the one of OP"-answer. I still think it would be good to have that answer, as it could still be helpful for others with the same error (independent of the cause) who find that question via google. But I guess I should have looked for a more generic version of it (I didn't check but I guess this kind of question likely has some duplicates). The same critique could be applied to most of the other answers as well, though.
    – luator
    Commented Sep 2 at 7:35
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    "I still think it would be good to have that answer." - I disagree with the answer being deleted, but I wouldn't;t say the answer is good because, as I said, the problem that was described would not have been caused by a firmware issue.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Sep 2 at 13:08
  • I understand that. So the right path would be to search for a question with the same error, that doesn't already narrow down the cause (that's what I meant with a "more generic version"). Or ask a new one and self-answer if I can't find one (but that's maybe overkill).
    – luator
    Commented Sep 2 at 18:45
  • Self-answering a question you cannot find on the site and so ask yourself is entirely OK and encouraged. One goal here is to be an encyclopedia of good questions paired with good answers.
    – music2myear
    Commented Sep 3 at 14:14
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    @music2myear My worry would be that the new question is deemed too similar to the existing one and hence closed as duplicate. Also, in my opinion, it's better to have one canonical question for a common error with multiple potential answers, rather than having a different question for each case. But I guess the given question is a bit too specific for that (even though it already has several different answers, which likely wouldn't have helped the asker as well).
    – luator
    Commented Sep 4 at 8:22
  • A line as simple as "In research I found this/these question(s) and tried the solutions in them, and they did not work..." can give the necessary differentiation.
    – music2myear
    Commented Sep 4 at 14:10
  • @Ramhound : From my reading, the problem would have been caused by a firmware issue for some situations, on some computers. Hence, it could be helpful for some people, even if it provides absolutely no usefulness for other people. And for those people it does potentially help, the answer hs useful value. Luator: I agree with Ramhound's assessment. I don't think the answer should have been deleted. But, the answer's lack of details makes it at least resemble many very inferior answers that are commonly posted. Your answer matches patterns that typically look bad, hence the answer feels bad
    – TOOGAM
    Commented Sep 10 at 0:12
  • @TOOGAM - It might have, but if it did, it was just dumb luck that the firmware settings as a result of the load were set in such a way where Intel RST was disabled instead of enabled. There is no evidence Luator was missing the same driver, which is the reason, just updating the firmware isn’t helpful. Furthermore, what about those situations, where the current firmware was already installed
    – Ramhound
    Commented Sep 10 at 1:00
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    @Ramhound (I'm wary of an extended discussion in comments, but since it looks like I was asked a quesiton, I will answer it.) All answers should be subjected to evaluation. It is not always expected that a single answer will actually lead to resolution for 100% of the people who encounter the situation. I can think of some high-pressure situations where some solution that was not thought of, or was deemed unlikely, was tried anyway, and I was quite happy to have the situations resolved. That's why I see value in such answers, even if they don't qualify to win an "answer of the year" award.
    – TOOGAM
    Commented Sep 10 at 16:46

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Besides specificity and applicability, which as Ramhound notes isn't a reason on its own, the primary reason that I voted to delete your post AND did not rescind that vote as we conversed in comments, is that, despite my advising you multiple times to add just some additional explanation and context to your post, even just those bits you put in the comments, you didn't, and your answer at the end was still the simple:

In some cases updating the BIOS/UEFI fixes that error.

The context you'd added in the comments replying to me, had you put that in the post, would have made it enough of an answer that I would have rescinded my Delete vote. I asked you to do this twice, and you didn't.

Many times you'll see members of this community comment suggesting an answer, and then once the Asker has tried this suggestion and based on their feedback, they will post an answer. Especially in cases where the essential points of the answer are pretty simple, such as "update your BIOS", once the comment is "converted" to a full answer, some time is taken to add explanation and context to help the Asker understand WHY this is the solution, HOW it works, or other helpful context that fills out the answer to be more complete.

Adding

I got exactly the same error when trying to install Windows 11 (admittedly on a different computer but this will also be the case for most people finding this question via Google). I tried different suggested solutions without success and what fixed it in the end for me, was to do an UEFI update. Of course, it will not be the solution in all cases of this error message but at least in my case it was, so it might be useful for others as well.

to your answer would have been helpful to explain how you understand your solution is different from the others, but that the symptoms were the same and so for others having this problem it is worth trying this other thing.

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    Thanks a lot for putting in the effort and reaching out again! I agree that it would be nice to have some explanation why the BIOS update helped. Unfortunately, I don't know that myself (I only found out that it helped). I didn't add anything from my comment, because I didn't understand how any of it would answer the WHY/HOW or be otherwise relevant for a future reader (obviously I had the same error, otherwise I wouldn't be here; the mere fact that I tried different things before is imo also not really interesting for others). ...
    – luator
    Commented Sep 4 at 8:12
  • ... So it was not clear to me how I should have extended the answer. What I do understand now, is that I should have made it clear, that I have different hardware and that the cause of the error was probably different than in the question.
    – luator
    Commented Sep 4 at 8:12
  • @luator - The fact you don’t understand why the firmware reset resolves the problem is exactly the reason you shouldn’t be suggesting it, an educated guess is that you also had an Intel RST issue, and by the firmware resetting your firmware the resulting configuration was changed with regards to Intel RST. Without understanding what settings resulted in the solution to a problem the author identified and confirmed as a conflict with Intel RST it’s hard to say. You like also didn’t have the exact same problem as the author, there many different reasons, you would get that error message.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Sep 6 at 5:46
  • If you had an issue, and you were trying to install Windows while Intel RST was enabled, and by resetting the firmware resulted in Intel RST becoming disabled. You simply stumbled into a resolution, the real answer to that exact situation, would be to provide the missing driver. I am guessing you cannot confirm which driver was missing, I dislike answers which claim they had the same problem, and after reading them I often conclude they likely didn’t actually have the same problem. It’s often a sign of someone who stumbled upon a solution but doesn’t understand why they had success
    – Ramhound
    Commented Sep 6 at 5:51
  • @Ramhound : Answers where people don't understand the root cause for the answer's success are lame, at least in comparison to being able to educate someone into a real full understanding. However, even a stumbled-upon answer has potential value. If an approach ends downtime and resumes productivity (whether this is a business workstation or not, even if "productivity" is just producing high scores in a game), I see some potential undeniable value in being able to have that success. If I ruled out the likelihood of a BIOS update fixing it, an answer like this could be just what brings success
    – TOOGAM
    Commented Sep 10 at 0:08
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    @TOOGAM - I am sorry, “I update the firmware and it solved my problem”, isn’t an answer to a question caused by a missing Intel RST driver while installing Windows it’s just dumb luck.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Sep 10 at 0:58
  • @Ramhound That's a good point, I didn't consider. If the problem indeed wasn't resolved by some fix in the firmware but just by some implicit settings change, then I agree, that it is not a good answer. I'm still with TOOGAM that any hint, which might get your system working, is good to have, but I better understand now why it should maybe rather be a comment than an answer.
    – luator
    Commented Sep 16 at 8:18

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