VAN STATUS_VMD_9001 in League and VALORANT: Vanguard lost contact with the Intel VMD controller
Riot VanguardLeague + VALORANTThe message
VAN: STATUS_VMD_9001 - The VMD controller has encountered a fatal unrecoverable error. Process will terminate.What it means
Vanguard hit a problem talking to your PC's Intel Volume Management Device (VMD) controller, which is mostly seen on PCs running Intel Rapid Storage Technology.
What to try first
Reinstall or update the Intel RST driver, then restart. Riot says that usually clears it.
Playing VALORANT?
VAN: STATUS_VMD_9001 comes from Vanguard, which VALORANT and League share, and Riot answers it with one article for both games. The fix on this page works in VALORANT too.
Where VALORANT differs:
- Server status: our League status page won't tell you about VALORANT. Use Riot's service status page instead.
Is it you or Riot? If lots of players are hitting this at once, it's probably the servers. Check League server status before you start reinstalling things.
This isn't VAN 9001
The 9001 in the name is a coincidence you can ignore. Plain VAN 9001 means Vanguard wants TPM 2.0 and can't find it. STATUS_VMD_9001 has nothing to do with TPM. It's about storage: Intel's Volume Management Device controller and the Rapid Storage Technology (RST) driver that Riot ties it to. Riot says a fresh or updated RST driver usually fixes it, and that's the whole of its step list.
Which driver download is yours
Riot draws a clear line. A prebuilt or laptop from Lenovo, HP, Dell, ASUS, MSI, Acer or Microsoft gets its RST driver from that maker's support site, for your exact model. A PC you built yourself, or an older prebuilt the maker has stopped updating, gets Intel's generic RST driver from Intel's own support page. Start with the maker's version if you have one.
If the message says INCOMPATIBLE OEM DRIVER instead
A second Vanguard error also involves Intel's VMD/RST driver. When it names iastorvd.sys as an incompatible OEM driver, the problem is a security feature the driver doesn't support, and Riot's answer there is waiting for a compatible Intel release. Reinstalling the same driver is the fix for STATUS_VMD_9001 only.
Riot's fix, in Riot's order
Restart your PC
A full restart, not a sign-out. Vanguard's driver loads when Windows boots, so a restart is the only thing that gives it a clean start.
If the error survives a fresh RST driver and a restart, Riot wants a Player Support ticket with your logs attached.
Other wordings of the same error
VAN STATUS_VMD_9001STATUS_VMD_9001VMD controller has encountered a fatal unrecoverable error
Source: Riot Games Player Support, Error VAN: STATUS_VMD_9001, updated July 17, 2026. Riot's steps are paraphrased here, not copied; checked November 9, 2026.