Installing W7 64-bit issue

I have a custom box using an MSI X58 Pro board with an i7 processor.

The board is fully supported for 64bit use (as designated by MSI and MS's HWCL) and 64bit drivers are available from MSI.

I can install w7 32bit with no issues, and add drivers as needed after install.

When installing 64bit (from either CD or USB media) I get an error that additional CD/DVD Rom drivers are required to continue and gives you the option to browse for drivers. It's similar to what you would expect to encounter if you were using a RAID board and needed to load drivers during setup to find the HD.

I have downloaded and extracted EVERY driver from MSI, both 32 and 64 bit, browsed to each and every driver inf, tried each and every option within each inf, both with and without the "Display only compatible hardware" checkbox, and NOTHING works.

Ive disconnected the CD/DVD drive altogther and booted from a w7 install USB key, same error.

The HDD is using the onbord SATA controller.

I have removed every un-needed card, device, drive, etc leaving only the main board, drive, and graphics card, with no luck.

Am I just missing something here? I would think there would be no issue since 32bit installs without any need for drivers during install, yet 64bit doesnt.

I honestly havent looked, but I thought F6 during setup was eliminated during Vista/2003 and if a HDD couldnt be found it would prompt, or give the options to load drivers, so I havent attempted an F6 during text setup and gone through the 100+ driver options.

The fact that it says it needs CD/DVD drivers is what is throwing me...if there isnt one connected why does it need them, and clearly it can read the install media from DVD or USB, as it loads into setup. Makes no sense to me and ive been doing this crap a long time...


I should also mention, I have tried numerous DVD's, rebuilt the USB from sratch a few times, and I'm taking the files for the USB from a fresh MSDN iso, so its not like I have a courrupt DVD that Im just moving the promblem from DVD to USB.....

Help greatly appriciated, the only reason I even care is due to 32bit's RAM limit, and I need to use my full 12GB as this is going to be my video editing and processing workstation....

---------Edit---------

Also, I have reset BIOS to default, optimized, and fail-safe settings.

To note, bios hadnt changed since 32bit install. I literally installed 32 bit, saw there was still a memory limit, and installed (tried) 64 bit. (Why they are still limiting memory is killing me, I wanna say theres some sort of 32bit instruction limit that prevents using more RAM, but Win should be able to overcome that somehow using "virtual/physical" RAM in addition to disk virtual memory - at least Id think. Im not hw expert or programmer, just a 15yr sysadmin)

The driver needed is likely SATA controller. Focus on it and try to load again at the Load Drivers link on drive selection page.

If no drive is showing in the selection window, then that confirms it is SATA driver needed.

If the driver loading utility refuses to work, then I would slipstream it into installer.

Windows installation is telling you that not all of your hardware is 64bit compatible. It's asking for 64bit drivers for your CD/DVD rom drive, so why you're searching MSI's web site for drivers, I have no idea, unless, of course, your drive is manufactured by MSI. Go the the manufacturers' web site of your DVD rom drive and see if they offer a 64bit driver for your particular drive. Your device may be too old to support 64bit. The good new is, optical drives are not expensive.

Well, first, its a brand new optical drive, but second, I get the error with the optical drive disconnected.


And Im never getting to the disk selection screen to even see no disc available, this error is immediatly after the Install Splash, and clicking custom install.

I havent done a scratch custom install media in awhile (been using GUIs to do it lately but havent found a good w7 one) - I know there used to be an ~oem~ or similar directory you could place in the root of the install media and put drivers there (extracted of course), and setup woiuld serach the normal win drivers, then that dir for any drivers during both text setup and during GUI driver installation later in setup - is that still the case?

Any good GUI slipstream/custom install media builders for w7 out, short of running sysprep and building a standard answerfile?

The OD runs off the SATA controller, however this driver is normally required when it can't see the HD. There may be other drivers needed.

Use Vlite to slipstream drivers into installer, adding them progressively until error goes away. Too many drivers can tip over a Vlite installer.

You can write the files it updates to your flash, or let Vlite make you an ISO.

i'm jumping in because i've had the same problem. what i did was to place the SATA controllers on a USB flash drive. then when i got to the part of the installation where it gives you the option to load drivers, i browse to the files on the flash drive and select the .inf file, and the windows installer presents me with one driver (JMicron eSATA Host Controller in my case). BUT that is where i was running into trouble. i had to uncheck the box next to "show only compatible drivers", and through trial and error i found a driver in the list that worked. i also had to eject and re-insert the win7 DVD a couple times during install because it would hang for some reason. i could hear the disk spinning up and down, but nothing was loading. i'm guessing it had something to do with the SATA controller also.

I think I am going to disconnect the optical and sata HDD, connect an IDE HDD and see what happens from USB install. If it looks to work, then Im going to connect the optical and retry. That should tell me if its truely optical related, or sata (the optical is sata.) If IDE works, I may try loading it all up, installing all drivers, and then imaging the IDE and restoring it to the SATA and see how that goes.

This is by far the strangest win install issue I have seen since NT4 added the hidden F6 disk driver install. W7's install really seems to suck, ive had it fail on disk partitioning, deleted all partitions and formated only to tell me it couldnt create needed partitions. Deleting all the partitions, rebooting into setup and doing the exact same thing cured it....just a buggy installer.

It is unusual enough that we don't see your set of problems here often, and that is out of millions of installs of which we see only a tiny fraction of install problems. So it can't be put on the installer, but likely some quirk in your hardware interacting with the installer. Sometimes it can be a cable or single BIOS setting.

When I have install problems I can't waste any more time troubleshooting I take the HD out to put it in another computer to install Win7. When it starts up remove all major drivers in Device Manager, then shut down without restarting. After returning to problem machine it will almost always start up.. If not, I boot into Safe Mode to update any erroring drivers.

Acronis Imaging will also remove drivers from a Win7 install image to reimage to any hardware. Paragon Adaptive Restore will do this for the installed HD.

gregrocker said:

It is unusual enough that we don't see your set of problems here often, and that is out of millions of installs of which we see only a tiny fraction of install problems. So it can't be put on the installer, but likely some quirk in your hardware interacting with the installer. Sometimes it can be a cable or single BIOS setting.

When I have install problems I can't waste any more time troubleshooting I take the HD out to put it in another computer to install Win7. When it starts up remove all major drivers in Device Manager, then shut down without restarting. After returning to problem machine it will almost always start up.. If not, I boot into Safe Mode to update any erroring drivers.

Acronis Imaging will also remove drivers from a Win7 install image to reimage to any hardware. Paragon Adaptive Restore will do this for the installed HD.

Yeah, like I said, I think I'm gonna try it on an IDE and see what happens, then do an image transfer to sata if all works. If not Ill have to try doing an install on another machine and doing the swap, but I dont know that I have any other machines capable of 64bit. I guess I could do a VM 64bit install, image it and restore to HDD and try that.

The biggest quirk to me is that 32bit went 100% fine. In fact, I couldve gotten away without even installing all the drivers after installation of the OS on 32bit. The board, chipset, etc are all new generation hardware, and certified by MS and the manufacturer as 64bit compatible, its not like the hw shows up on the 32bit MS h/w list and 64 doesnt or is * with notes....thats what seems so strange. I guess since 7 is really the first MS desktop os where 64 bit is starting to get to the consumer the driver base included with the OS isnt as large as the 32bit base is.

I'm just suprised MSI doesnt show anything on their site about special 64bit install proceedures if this is truely HW related, and that I dont seem to find anyone else with the issue. And if its HW related it HAS to be the MSI board, bucause like I said, I have stripped EVERYTHING off the machine - all that is there is the MSI board, the i7, the 6 2GB sticks, and a generic video card (which is new, just low end.) The fact it can get INTO setup and passed the select upgrade or custom when booting optical seems like an oxymoron that it then needs optical drivers, and that when removing the optical and running off USB media (into usb slots ON the board, not an expansion slot or case slot patched into the board) im getting the same error.

Might also try an IDE optical to see what happens, but I think all my IDE drives laying around are CD only not DVD capable. Ill play with it an report back, maybe someone else will run into this and my fight will help htme!

Thanks for the thoughts guys, if anyone else thinks of anything lemme know.