Windows 7 x86 USB installer not detected by Lenovo Ideapad 100S

jaggedelf said:

I read around and found out that "to save a few bucks, it is actually common for cheap systems to have a 32 bit UEFI firmware (and therefore force 32 bit Windows) even if the CPU is 64 bit capable." So I guess I'm going back to trying with a 32-bit Windows 7.

Lenovo Ideapad 100S
Windows 10 Home (32-bit); 1.3GHz Intel Atom Z3735F; 2GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz; 32MB (dedicated) Intel HD Graphics; 32GB SSD

How to install Windows 7 32-bit/64-bit in UEFI mode from USB flash drive.

32-bit UEFI firmware

You need to have a Windows 7 32-bit USB flash drive that is compatible with UEFI mode. As long as it is FAT32 formatted and has efi\boot\bootia32.efi file, it should be UEFI bootable.

The easiest method to do this, would be to use Rufus: https://rufus.akeo.ie/

Rufus automatically creates the boot folder in the efi folder and puts the bootia32.efi in the folder.

In Rufus do this (select the Windows 7 32-bit ISO image by clicking the CD drive icon). See the image below.

64-bit UEFI firmware

You need to have a Windows 7 64-bit USB flash drive that is compatible with UEFI mode. As long as it is FAT32 formatted and has efi\boot\bootx64.efi file, it should be UEFI bootable.

The easiest method to do this, would be to use Rufus: https://rufus.akeo.ie/

Rufus automatically creates the boot folder in the efi folder and puts the bootx64.efi in the folder.

In Rufus do this (select the Windows 7 64-bit ISO image by clicking the CD drive icon). See the image below.

This may or may not be related but I think worth a mention, Some Lenovo systems certain flash drives are a very loose fit in the USB ports whilst within Windows you can read and write from them ok but if you try to boot using one most of the time it will fail... I found the solution was if the flash drive is a loose fit to move it slightly towards you at a slight angle so it is not "square on" in the USB port ! (if it is a tight fit then please don't try this) also sometimes Lenovo does a warm start that will bypass booting from other sources, the solution for that is to power off the machine for 5mins before you try and boot from another source other than the HDD again.

Like I say this might not be the problem he is having, but an interesting little "quirk" I have found whilst working with these systems in the past.

AddRAM said:

Does this thing have a bios ? Did you enable it to boot from an external usb device ?

Sometimes it`s disabled by default.

Did you test the installer on another PC ?

The bios on this machine is extremely simplified, with the only options being toggling Secure Boot and BIOS Back Flash.

On that note, I messaged Lenovo tech support for help on this topic and they told me that this laptop doesn't support "Legacy mode", and that because of this, installing Windows 7 on it is impossible. Awful. Guess I'm just going to throw in the towel and re-install Windows 10 on this machine, since the installer actually boots. Thanks for the help everyone, I really appreciate it.

RootBeet said:

-snip-

I've tried this so many times, it just doesn't work. Maybe the ISO I've been using doesn't have a bootia32.efi file, or what the Lenovo representative said was correct and it wouldn't work either way. I've pretty much given up on trying. Thanks for trying to help anyway.

Andyrids said:

This may or may not be related but I think worth a mention, Some Lenovo systems certain flash drives are a very loose fit in the USB ports whilst within Windows you can read and write from them ok but if you try to boot using one most of the time it will fail... I found the solution was if the flash drive is a loose fit to move it slightly towards you at a slight angle so it is not "square on" in the USB port ! (if it is a tight fit then please don't try this) also sometimes Lenovo does a warm start that will bypass booting from other sources, the solution for that is to power off the machine for 5mins before you try and boot from another source other than the HDD again.

Like I say this might not be the problem he is having, but an interesting little "quirk" I have found whilst working with these systems in the past.

I'm sure that isn't a problem, I just tried it out a copy of Windows 10 with the same USB stick and it seems to be working fine. Thanks anyway!