Windows 7 not starting at all

[MrZork]

Attempting to reformat as Fat32 and just directly copy over the files that went into the ISO to the USB stick. Those files already have \efi\boot.

This failed. "The file 'install.wim' is too large for the destination file system." That file is 4.14 GB. Seems like a file that size may need NTFS.

 

[Paul Black]

Hi MrZork,

"The file 'install.wim' is too large for the destination file system."
That file is 4.14 GB.
Seems like a file that size may need NTFS.

What size is your USB?

 

[Megahertz07]

As your 960 M.2 disk is GPT, you must create a Win 7 installation UEFI disk. It must be FAT32.
So my suggestion is to start over and add the MVMe drivers only to Boot.wim and to Install.wim (only to Win 7 HP). The size should be less than 4 G.

 

[Paul Black]

Hi Megahertz07,

If you use UEFI:NTFS and temporarily disable Secure Boot work?
I know that exFAT can handle files larger than 4GB.
Will converting an install.wim to an install.esd using Dism work?
Rufus is normally good at doing this sort of thing! I wonder if any of the settings are wrong!

 

[MrZork]

The USB stick I am using is 16 GB.

 

[MrZork]

As your 960 M.2 disk is GPT, you must create a Win 7 installation UEFI disk. It must be FAT32.
So my suggestion is to start over and add the MVMe drivers only to Boot.wim and to Install.wim (only to Win 7 HP). The size should be less than 4 G.

I was already only putting a copy of the NVMe driver (the Samsung_NVM_Express_Driver_3.0.exe file) into the drivers/Bootx64 and drivers/Installx64 folders of the working folder for SIW2's tool.

So, if I am understanding correctly, from your earlier post, the change this time will be in the last step. In SIW2's post, step 5, I should choose whatever number corresponds to Win 7 HP (2, for me), instead of *.

 

[Paul Black]

Hi MrZork,

So, if I am understanding correctly, from your earlier post, the change this time will be in the last step. In SIW2's post, step 5, I should choose whatever number corresponds to Win 7 HP, instead of *.

I updated both a single image and ALL images when I tested the tool earlier this week. HOMEPREMIUM is image 2 by the way. The single image ended up at 4,498,442 KB’s, and ALL images ended up 4,720,996 KB’s.

I hope this helps!

 

[MrZork]

Hi, Paul.


So, that makes it seem as though there isn't that much of a size difference between the all-versions approach and the just-Win-HP approach. If the latter doesn't bring the file install.wim below 2 GB (it was over 4 GB last time) then re-doing this process will not result in a system that can be put on a Fat32 drive.



I am not sure where to go from that point. Might I be doing something odd that is making that file huge? Is there a way to tell SIW2's tool to split that file up or something?

 

[MrZork]

SIW2's tool just completed the just-Win7-HP run and sources/install.wim is once again over 4 GB (it is 4,453,697,747 bytes). Obviously, that is not going on a normal FAT 32 USB stick.


It seems like either there is some way to boot from an NTFS USB stick, or some way to create a much smaller source/install.wim file.

 

[Megahertz07]

Just added the MVMe drivers to boot.wim (index 1 and 2) and to Install.wim (index 2 = HP)
The total size is 3.03G

 

[MrZork]

As your 960 M.2 disk is GPT, you must create a Win 7 installation UEFI disk. It must be FAT32.

BTW, just for my edification, why does the fact that the target boot drive is formatted GPT require that the installation media be FAT32? I am not seeing why the two are connected. If I were to buy a set of installation media from MS, would they need to know how my target drive is formatted before they could send me the DVDs?

 

[Megahertz07]

To install as UEFI-GPT (or repair) you must boot the installation disk as UEFI.
To boot as UEFI the boot loader must be on a FAT32 partition. If you ever looked at the 960 drive with disk manager you will see that the fist partition is 100M Fat32 and has the boot loader.
Did you see my post#30?

 

[MrZork]

Just added the MVMe drivers to boot.wim (index 1 and 2) and to Install.wim (index 2 = HP)
The total size is 3.03G

Okay, so I am doing something incorrectly somewhere when creating the installation files. But, as far as I can see, I am just following the instructions in SIW2's post.

Wait a minute! I just looked at the sources/install.wim directly from the 7601_24168_en-US_x64.iso file that I downloaded from the link in your earlier post. It is already well over 4 GB before I have run any other software on it! In other words, if I were to try and create a FAT32 USB stick from that ISO, even without trying to add any other drivers to it, it would already fail. Is that perhaps not the correct ISO I should be using for this?

 

[Paul Black]

Hi Megahertz07,

Just added the MVMe drivers to boot.wim (index 1 and 2) and to Install.wim (index 2 = HP)
The total size is 3.03G

Was that adding the drivers to the downloaded ISO before applying any updates?

 

[Megahertz07]

The Iso from the link is 3.1G Don't understand how yours is over 4G.

 

[Megahertz07]

Extract the files from the iso with 7zip https://www.7-zip.org/a/7z1805-x64.exe

 

[MrZork]

Megahertz07, I am re-downloading the linked ISO file. I can see that it will be 3.1 GB. I have no idea why it was different before. I am certain I clicked on the link in your post #7 earlier today when I first downloaded the file.

Once I have the new file, I will try again to create the installation disk USB.

 

[Megahertz07]

Hi Megahertz07,


Was that adding the drivers to the downloaded ISO before applying any updates?

Didn't added the updates. Only MVMe driver.

 

[MrZork]

BTW, complete side-issue but... Why does the forum software keep adding extra newline characters to my posts?

 

[Paul Black]

Hi MrZork,

I think what Megahertz07 is suggesting is that you add the MVMe drivers to the ISO that you are downloading from post #7, and then create a bootable USB from that using Rufus. There is no need to run SIW2's tool to include ALL the updates.

Is that correct Megahertz07?