WetGeek To quote a friend, that's just not correct. When you're able to do the same with an ACER Aspire 5 running Windows 11 Home S, I'll believe that you have a solution for me.
It's entirelly possible that the ACER firmware is very different from the Dell firmware. I've installed Solus on at least a dozen computers that originally arrived running Windows, and I'm telling you it's apparently not possible on this one. It's locked down VERY well.
And this ACER Aspire 5's firmware is very different from the firmware on the ACER Aspire 5 that my wife previously had ... the one that came with Windows 10, and on which I installed Solus Budgie.
I even removed S mode on this machine, and that made no difference.
It sounds like an Acer issue, not a Windows 11 issue or a Solus issue. I think that you are going to have to chase down the solution with Acer. Again, I don't use Acer computers, but I really wonder if Acer has encrypted the drives.