For point 1 you need to toggle a setting in UEFI that switches between RAID (Rapid Storage) and AHCI. It sounds like you are in RAID mode and in this mode Linux will be unable to probe the disk. If you toggle the setting then the current Windows install will break but both Windows (clean install) and Linux will be able to see the disk. Point 3, yeah I heard that in reddit too. Enshittification in full swing. Points 2 & 4 no comment lol