Solved Installing Win7 on an MSI MEG Z590 ACE

[SNKohlmeyer]

Hi,

This is my first time posting in this in forum, though I’ve found it to be an incredibly useful source of information over the past few months, so hopefully someone can help me with an issue.

I’m an economist and composer, and this PC is to replace and older one for work (MSI Z97 MPower Max AC) while maintaining some of the existing hardware and the Win7 OS.

Other people have gotten Win7 to run on an MSI MEG Z590 ACE, so I must be doing something wrong.

In the new build I’ve installed only the MSI Radeon RX 6750 XT (which came w/ Win7 drivers), as well as a WDC WD6004FZWX-00BKVA0 hard drive and Pioneer BDR-S13UB optical drive; both are internal SATA.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

Starting w/ the "en_windows_7_ultimate_with_sp1_x64_dvd_u_677332.iso" from April 2011, I integrated all pertinent updates, omitting telemetry, Win 8/10 prep, activation, etc., using NTLite. Most recently, updates from 10/10 were added, making the version number 6.1.7601.26769. A screenshot is attached.

Intel USB 3.0 Extensible Host Controller drivers have been integrated into both install.wim and boot.wim, and other relevant drivers from my hardware were added (e.g., Yamaha studio piano, printer, scanner, sound card, monitor, PCIe cards, mic, camera, modified network adapter, et al.).

Lastly, I copied the boot directory from /efi/Microsoft into the /efi directory, and added bootmgfw.efi from sources\install.wim\1\Windows\Boot\EFI\ and renamed it bootx64.efi.

I’ve used Rufus for USB installation and also burned the ISO to a Blu-ray; the same problem occurs: It locks up w/in 2 seconds of beginning the installation. I know this b/c the Num Lock key becomes unresponsive and it will hang indefinitely. It never even gets to the installation menu. I've tried other USB drives and other USB ports to no avail.

Switching from UEFI to CSM does not work at all. Whenever I try CSM it boots into the BIOS with an error about PCI insufficient resources. The only connected PCIe device is the graphics card stated above. Nothing is responsive, not the keyboard, mouse, etc. The only resolution is to reset the CMOS on the back, after which I go through the entire process again – choosing the CPU cooler setup, etc.

I have been dealing w/ this for two months and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. Please, please someone tell me how to resolve this.

Thank you all so much!

My best,

Nick

 

[SIW2]

for win7 on new amd motherboards.

[Solution] Win7/8.1 Drivers for USB 3.0/3.1 Controllers of new AMD Chipset Systems - Windows 7/Vista/Server 2008 - Win-Raid Forum

[Solution] Win 7/Win8.1 x64 Ryzen APU Video driver - Windows 7/Vista/Server 2008 - Win-Raid Forum


intel

Z590 TACHYON A5 BSOD problem - #6 by canonkong - Windows 7/Vista/Server 2008 - Win-Raid Forum

https://www.sevenforums.com/install...our-win-7-installation-media.html#post3398225

 

[SNKohlmeyer]

Thank you for replying. That post was how I discovered this forum when I researching Win7-compatible motherboards in June; it helped convince me to buy the MSI Z590, expecting it to be a simple setup.

 

[SIW2]

Boot win10/11 pe and use winntsetup to apply the image from the updated win7 install.wim

 

[SNKohlmeyer]

Tried this and it failed. The last good driver that loads is disk.sys. Is that helpful to anyone, please? I know others have had this exact problem – am thinking it has something to do w/ UEFI but I'm not sure.

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I should add that Win 10 installs fine, so it's not a hardware issue (have read before that RAM seating can prompt this error). Also, I'm going to try suggestions from this thread, which seems to be applicable: UEFI/GPT install stuck on disk.sys in safe mode

 

[SIW2]

You need to enable csm. Ask Canonkong how he did it.

 

[SNKohlmeyer]

I've tried to enable CSM on this mb and get a PCI resources error; nothing is responsive and have to reset the CMOS to correct it. Did he have this problem?

I really, really appreciate your help. Thank you so much.

 

[SIW2]

i dont know what he did, ask him, he doesnt bite.

 

[SNKohlmeyer]

How do I do that exactly? I posted on the Win-Raid forum, but I'm not sure how to DM. I really appreciate your taking time to help me.

 

[SIW2]

Hopefully he will see it.

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Z590 also needs to disable XHCI handoff in BIOS or it will freeze

Z590 TACHYON A5 BSOD problem - #20 by canonkong - Windows 7/Vista/Server 2008 - Win-Raid Forum

 

[SNKohlmeyer]

Thank you so much! I was able to DM him there. Also, yeah, it was that conversation that convinced me to get the MSI motherboard, as well as having had fantastic success w/ MSI for decades. I still have a working KT3 Ultra and my other work PC is a Z97 MPower Max. The GPU in it failed after 8 years, so it was time to upgrade.

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Here is the error I get when CSM is enabled. Above 4g, resize bar, secure boot all disabled. Please someone tell me how to fix this.

 

[SIW2]

Have you tried it without the graphics card?

 

[SNKohlmeyer]

Yeah, and I've tried it w/ one ram chip in the A2 slot, since I read somewhere that could be a problem.

- - - Updated - - -

From the research I've done, this error affects people who have several gpus – people who do cryptomining or the like. I've not found issue related exactly like this, and I've been looking since June.

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I really don't care how the problem is solved at this point, and will even pay someone to solve it since this is eating into work. I'm indifferent to MBR/GPT – installing the OS on a new 2 TB WD Black would be fine. (They are phenomenal, btw – have 2 of them that are 10 years old: one is an OS drive and both still work flawlessly.)

 

[SNKohlmeyer]

Updating the BIOS did the trick. Thank you so much for your help and putting me in contact w/ Canonkong! I’ll try to install Win 7 tomorrow. Can I use a drive larger than 2 TB?

 

[SIW2]

glad to hear it.

I expect you can use larger than 2tb disk as long as it is gpt partition style.

keep us updated

 

[SNKohlmeyer]

Would you know off-hand how to install it GPT from CSM? Is that even possible? I doesn't make any difference – this is just more a convenience issue than a problem.

 

[SIW2]

CSM is a bios feature. It is required for win7 in efi mode. CSM must be enabled in bios.
( there are workarounds for advanced users, but that is beyond the scope of this thread)

gpt is a partitioning style. Initialize the disk as gpt.

If using the regular windows setup from booted media:

Boot win7 installation media in efi mode to Install win7 in efi mode.

 

[SNKohlmeyer]

I haven't built a PC in 9 years, so it's a bit of a learning curve; lots of things changed that I was not familiar w/.

 

[SIW2]

It is not difficult. Kids do it. Just a few words to become familiar with.

 

[SNKohlmeyer]

I did it when I was a kid, but that's getting to be a long time ago now.

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I'm sorry to keep bothering you, but I don't know what I am doing wrong. I integrated USB drivers into both boot.wim and install.wim, but the keyboard is not responsive – no error about not having drivers that I've seen in other examples, just ones that aren't working. I used intel(r)_usb_3.0_extensible_host_controller_driver_5.0.4.43_v2