Windows 7 on B550 With Ryzen 5 CPU

[Cranium]

It doesn't seem to work. When I boot from the USB stick, a blue Windows logo appears very briefly then seems to crash and the whole screen is black with a white flashing line on the top left (like the cmd prompt). Can't type anything though. Have tried all the USB ports on the laptop and it's the same result. Maybe I need a different iso?

Edit: Nevermind! after waiting about a minute or so it loaded up. Looked like it crashed though. Works flawlessly, am looking at my drive now and moving files as I write this

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As expected, it will take quite a long time to backup gigabytes of files to an external drive, but it works which is what matters. So if anyone is in my position (I'm positive I won't be the last person on Windows 7 with a discontinued motherboard) then follow the advice kindly provided by SWI2 and you shouldn't have a problem. When booting from the USB stick, if it looks like it's crashed, it hasn't, just wait a bit.

There's only one thing left, downgrading to Windows 10. How is the best way to go about this? From what I researched, LTSC version is has the least bloat and garbage, so I would prefer something like this. Would it be as simple as downloading a Windows 10 iso onto this USB drive, booting from that drive, then the Windows 10 installation should offer an option to completely wipe the drive and install Windows 10? I have read some posts about some compatibility issues with software like photoshop/gaming with LTSC but I'm not sure.

 

[SIW2]

after waiting about a minute or so it loaded up.

yes it is big and can take a while to load unless on a reasonably powerful pc.

Would it be as simple as downloading a Windows 10 iso onto this USB drive, booting from that drive, then the Windows 10

Not exactly. Because you have already created the bootable usb stick, I would suggest look inside the sources folder on the usb.
Rename boot.wim to something sensible like 1904v3.wim

Then just extract the contents of the win10 iso file onto the usb stick using 7-zip.

https://7-zip.org/a/7z2107-x64.exe

https://7-zip.org/a/7z2107.exe

Highlight the contents of the win10 iso and then rt click and select copy to, Like this: ( in the example below replace R:\ with the letter of your usb stick )




That is so the 1904v30.wim is still in the sources folder and the other stuff like the Uprograms folder will still be on the usb stick.
So you can add an entry to select booting either windows setup or the 1904v30.wim .
I can show you how to add the boot entry for that later.
It will be a multi purpose usb media.

 

[Cranium]

Okay, It'll be 3 - 4 days until my motherboard arrives then I can proceed, otherwise I've backed up what I needed to and am ready to wipe the drive. What Windows 10 iso do you think is appropriate and where should I get it? I don't see it on the usb unless I'm mistaken. I am considering LTSC for gaming and with the hopes it'll be a bit more similar to Win7 by not installing stuff like cortana, but don't really know enough about Windows 10 to make a decision

 

[SIW2]

What Windows 10 iso do you think is appropriate and where should I get it?

I tried to like win10, but I prefer win7.

I am not the best person to ask about ltsc etc.

You can d/l the iso files from here:

TechBench by WZT (v4.1.1)

 

[Megahertz07]

I tried to like win10, but I prefer win7.

I am not the best person to ask about ltsc etc.

You can d/l the iso files from here:

TechBench by WZT (v4.1.1)

I think TechBench provides Win 10 with install.wim that is bigger than 4G.
I would download from MCT that provides Win 10 with install.esd that is smaller than 4G.

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I have created a USB boot able with SIW2 excellent tools.
I have created a Win 7 folder where I extracted a Win 7 iso.
To install Win 7 (or Win 10) I boot the USB boot able with SIW2 tools, open Explorer and on the Win 7 folder I run setup.

 

[Cranium]

I tried to like win10, but I prefer win7.

I feel the same way, but will just bite the bullet if it might mean less headaches in the future for me compatibility wise

I think TechBench provides Win 10 with install.wim that is bigger than 4G.
I would download from MCT that provides Win 10 with install.esd that is smaller than 4G.

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I have created a USB boot able with SIW2 excellent tools.
I have created a Win 7 folder where I extracted a Win 7 iso.
To install Win 7 (or Win 10) I boot the USB boot able with SIW2 tools, open Explorer and on the Win 7 folder I run setup.

Thanks mate, so basically I would download the Win10 iso from MCT, extract the iso to the bootable USB, then boot my PC via the bootable USB and run the Win10 setup pointing to my main PC SSD drive as the source for the OS. Is this correct? Also sorry I'm talking about Win10 here, I'm just a bit conflicted at the moment whether to double down with Win7 or just go to Win10

 

[Megahertz07]

Get a 8G USB drive
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:

diskpart
list disk (it will list all drives. Identify the USB drive number)
select disk n (replace n by the USB drive number obtained with list disk)
clean
convert mbr
create part primary
select part 1
format fs=fat32 quick
assign
active
exit (to exit diskpart)

On Win 7 computer use 7Zip to extract all files and folders from the 17514x64v30.iso file to the USB drive.
On Win 10 computer , mount the iso file and copy all files and folders to the USB drive.

Create a Win 10 folder on the USB drive.
On Win 7 computer use 7Zip to extract all files and folders from the Win 10 iso file to the Win 10 folder on the USB drive.
On Win 10 computer , mount the iso file and copy all files and folders to the USB drive.



Boot from SIW2 tools.
Open Explorer
Browse to Win 10 folder
Run Setup to install win 10

 

[Cranium]

Hey mate, all good with formatting the drive to SIW2 tools. I can't use the Windows MCT though, I get an error code 0x80072F8F - 0x20000. I've tried using an ISO instead, but can't copy the large install.wim file like you mentioned earlier. So I'm currently going to try entering 'Dism /Split-Image /ImageFile:\sources\install.wim /SWMFile:E:\sources\install.' into the CMD prompt

As advised here; Install Windows from a USB Flash Drive | Microsoft Docs

 

[SIW2]

It is easier with something like gimagex. Works fine on win7.

https://www.autoitconsulting.com/files/gimagex/gimagex.zip



A useful tool for working with wim files ( and a lot else ) is dism++, but oddly it doesnt include a split feature . It is attached to my sig at the bottom of my posts.

 

[Cranium]

If I use Usb7ice to copy the Windows 10 iso to the USB drive, wouldn't I be able to boot from that and install Windows 10 to a drive of my choice? If that wouldn't work I'll use gimagex, thanks SIW2

 

[SIW2]

If I use Usb7ice to copy the Windows 10 iso to the USB drive

The limitation is the fat32 filesystem on the usb stick which can only support max file size of 4gb. Many motherboards expect fat32 for efi boot.

splitting wims is easy.

 

[Cranium]

Yep all good, made it into being able to boot into SIW2 on my newly built PC. However if I try boot in UEFI mode it never loads, it only works when I change to CSM in the bios. The issue is that I can't install onto the drive I want after loading up with CSM, because "The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks."

Any ideas? Googled it and it said to reboot in UEFI mode

Should I press delete or format on the drive and then try install? (This is in the Windows 10 installer by the way)

 

[SIW2]

win7 natively needs csm ( there is a workaround).

Most mobos can have csm support in efi mode. Mine does.

If you have a weird mobo that only has csm support in bios mode, you could use efiseven, or you can boot win10 media.


1. on your existing usb stick sources folder , rename boot.wim to boot7.wim

2. Copy the contents of the 1904v3.iso file onto the usb stick using 7-zip. You can skip copying the Uprograms folder because you already have it on there.

1904v3.iso


If you like, you add entry for boot7.wim as well so you would get a menu to select either.

 

[Cranium]

Should I not wipe the drive either through the Windows 10 installer or manually? Reading through this it sounds like the problem is drive specific, not bios specific? I'm able to load into the OS loaded on the USB (17514x64v30.iso), but it requires CSM that's all. I'm currently looking at the Windows 10 setup, I probably didn't explain that well enough.

Windows Setup: Installing using the MBR or GPT partition style | Microsoft Docs

 

[SIW2]

The issue is that I can't install onto the drive I want after loading up with CSM, because "The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks."

That indicates you are booted in efi mode using csm. The problem therefore is that disk is mbr partition style.

If you are using windows setup to install, it requires gpt partition style disk in efi mode, or mbr partition style if booted in bios mode.

If there is nothing on the disk you want, you can delete all the partitions and the windows setup will then do what it wants.

If there is stuff on the disk you really want, then you could convert it to gpt using diskgenius which is already in the boot media.

 

[Cranium]

That indicates you are booted in efi mode using csm. The problem therefore is that disk is mbr partition style.

If there is nothing on the disk you want, you can delete all the partitions and the windows setup will then do what it wants.

If there is stuff on the disk you really want, then you could convert it to gpt using diskgenius which is already in the boot media.

Yeah I had backed everything up the other day, when you helped me move the drive into my laptop, boot into the USB drive and backup everything on an external HDD. So I'm just going to wipe this one clean and install the new OS. Should I just click the delete option on the relevant partitions, or do it manually via the cmd prompt, or it doesn't matter?

 

[SIW2]

You can just click them and delete

 

[Cranium]

Yeah that worked fine, have tried installing Windows twice now and it's failed both times. Not sure whether something went wrong when splitting the .wim, but I don't think so. I made the destination folder the relevant sources folder and it was split into two .swm files.

At the end the installation gets cancelled - 'Setup cannot continue due to a corrupted installation file' - I used a Windows 10 multi-edition ISO, English International version. Not sure if that's relevant. Any idea how to troubleshoot this?

Found this as a potential solution - 'To zero the beginning of the drive, i used Univeral Boot CD, dropped into Parted Magic, opened a terminal and ran

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M count=1'

Is there any tool in the USB bootable that is like 'Parted Magic' ?

 

[SIW2]

It doesnt include dd, but you could try applying the image using winntsetup.

If you can get the install.wim somewhere it can be seen from the booted media, you can point winntetup at it.

 

[Cranium]

I'll put install.wim on an external SSD, connect it to my PC, then try using winntsetup on it

Just want to make sure that for Boot drive I put the USB bootable and for installation drive I put the SSD I want to install the OS on? Seems like common sense but just want to be sure