Won't install from USB and I'm frustrated!

Hi guys. I need some halp please.
I put Windows 7 Ultimate onto a USB flash drive using the command prompt method. During the installation and before anything is actually installed, I saw this message:


Load Driver_______________________________________________[ X ]
A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. If you havea driver
floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB flash drive, pleaseinsert it now.
Note: If the Windows installation media is in the CD/DVD drive, you
can safely remove it for this step.
____________________________________________[Browse] [OK] [Cancel]


I wish I could post a screenshot but that's kind of difficult for my situation, and I also haven't got a camera.

I prepared the same USB stick again using Novicorp WinToFlash, and I got the same error message. Then I tried another USB stick, and still I got the same results. Then I tried a different ISO altogether, and I still had the same thing happening. I really wanna install Windows 7!

What do I do?

If it helps to know, I used an Attache 4 GB stick and a Western Digital USB HD. I have a Dell Mini 9 and I've done this successfully before on that machine. And it's 32 bit!!!!!

Jonathan_King said:

Try changing your SATA setting to AHCI in your BIOS, or IDE if it's already on AHCI.

kthanx. I'll try it tonight. anything else I should try??

You also need to set the USB drive as the first boot device in the BIOS too. In case you haven't already done this.

sorry guys. there is nothing in my bios that lets me change that sort of thing. btw, it's a dell mini 9.

p4ch1nk0 said:

sorry guys. there is nothing in my bios that lets me change that sort of thing. btw, it's a dell mini 9.

It won't be in your bios... take a close look at your system startup. When that first screen comes on, the one with DELL all over it... look at the bottom you should have two bits of text...

One will say "Press DEL to enter setup" ... or on some machines it's F2 or sometimes F10 ....

The other will say "Press F12 for boot menu"... this can vary too, sometimes it's F11 or Insert...

If it has the boot menu message you can install win7 from a flash drive... But you will have to prepare the Flash drive on another Win 7 machine.... You will need access to a DVD drive.

Here's how...

1) Insert your Flashdrive and go into Disk Management...
Delete the partition from the flash drive then create a new PRIMARY partition and format it with ntfs. Make note of the drive letter... you're going to need this in a couple of minutes...

2) Put your Win7 installer DVD in it's drive
Cancel the stupid autoplay thing (I actually disable the service)
Now select all files on the DVD drive and copy them to the flash drive.

3) On the Flash drive you will find a directory named BOOT
Copy this folder to c:\ on your hard disk

4) Now press and hold the Windows key while you type an R.
In the Run dialog type CMD and click OK to open a Command Shell window.
NOTE... for the example below we'll assume your flash drive is drive Q, but you will have to substitue your own drive letter for the Q...

5) In the command shell type the following sequence...

Code:

c:
cd \boot
bootsect /nt60 Q:

Ok. now you should have a bootable flash drive with Win7 on it.

6) Next reboot your computer and nail the Boot Menu key you spotted way back at the beginning of this...
You will be presented with a list of bootable devices
Use the up and down arrow keys to select your flash drive
Press enter.

If you see "Windows is loading files" on a blank screen... it's working.

Of course all of this is moot if your system won't boot from a flash drive.

tw33k said:

How's that gonna help?? His problem is not the hard drive, it looks like his BIOS is not recognizing the falsh drive.

Probably it wasn't made bootable...

p4ch1nk0..have you made sure your BIOS is set to have the flash drive as first in the boot priority?

That won't help him either... he needs the pop up menu with the Hard disk as primary in his BIOS... After the first boot in the install sequence Windows has to go to the hard disk not the flash drive... Setting the flash as primary in bios will only put the installer into an endless loop.