Asus Z170 motherboard W7 install failure?

Hi Friends


My fist build here. I wanted to think about buying a asus z170 mobo or similar. I read where the install process for installing w7 will stop and deactivate usb ports at one point of the install. because of no drivers for this board. . I think I have been there before.

My wonder here is ... Can I take a functional windows 7 HDD from my slow AMD computer and plug into a new mobo build. Would it boot and give me a GUI access to the desktop to install needed ASUS drivers etc....

Thx guys and gals.

Thanks SWI@


I had thought about the difficulty to get the drivers installed. But it would be on the install of a new HDD... I wonder if...hmmmm... The drivers would be loaded on the new HDD . If added my older w7 drive as a second drive I could not use the old drive as a primary boot. since it would not have the drivers. Could the softwares on that old drive still function? that would save me money.

You can use the old disk as SIW2 has showed.
Personally I think it is a bad idea. The new MB has a complete different hardware that requires new drivers. And old installations has a lot of trash on it.

I strongly recommend a clean install. To do it you must add the USB and SATA drivers to the win 7 installation disk.
SIW2 also gave you the ASUS tool link. https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/m..._20180503R.zip

SIW2 also made his own tool - Update your Win 7 installation media.

Thank you megahertz and SWI2

Yes I was hoping to find a newer used or old stock mobo that was faster than my 2oo mhz FSB front side bus / 667 hzz ddr2 speed board. dual core amd. hopefully make a re used of my 7200 rpm old drive and w7. But I keep finding the asua and gigabite type z170 etcs to have this driver issue. I don't want w10 and would not wish to rebuild. Just trying get away from this old board. and ideas?

how much longer on the free software offer you think?

Just to throw this in, I just this week used the Asus EZ Installer to create a Win7 USB installation disk, and it worked just fine on an Asus Z170M-Plus. The issue is, I believe, that without the drivers you lose your USB keyboard and mouse during the installation. I have PS/2 stuff so don't even know if it was necessary to do anything special. In any case, no problems with the installation.

On the other hand, I've had a lot of success trying an old drive and OS in a new machine, I'd say give it a try and see if it works. If it does boot, I'd make sure to then install all the motherboard and other hardware drivers.

Well To continue my struggle I have used the Asus EZinstaller tool to slipstream the so called correct drivers to my creation of a new USB bootable ISO . But when using the usb the end result is that the windows process cannot find the drive. no matter how many attempts i make. I even load the drivers from another usb souce . get windows to see the file attempt to load and then fail with a error clain I need to use the latest ACHI drivers from the manufacturer. WHICH I AM USING ug!!

I get the same error with windows 10 ! that should not happen?


I have used my Parted magic testing software and read and scanned the sectors on the drive no problems and passes!



so now my question is can I buy a M.2 drive and will that make a "go around" on this problem. is the M.2 using the same needed drivers ?