Install Windows 8 through USB 3.0 stick?

dukenuke88

[H]ard|Gawd
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Hello, I've always installed past versions of Windows through a CD/DVD. I'm thinking of picking up a cheap USB stick for purposes of installing Windows 8 only. Does it install super fast using a USB 3.0 vs 2.0? I'm thinking of buying a USB 3.0 stick with 100mb read speeds....but if it doesn't speed up the install time, then I'll just go with a cheapo 2.0 stick with around 20mb read speeds

Thanks in advanced
 
I would recommend just getting a good USB 2.0 stick like a sandisk or etc... I have had no luck gettingi it to install via 3.0 ports and really it does not take that long installing off USB to begin with... just my 2 cents...
 
You won't be able install Windows using the Renesas USB 3.0 ports because they aren't supported until the drivers have been installed. The Intel USB 3.0 ports will work at 2.0 speeds until the eXtensible Host Control drivers have been installed into your Windows 8 installation.
 
Ahh gotcha...I thought by Windows 8, USB 3.0 would work during the install...but I guess not...I'll just buy a whatever 2.0 stick and call it a day. Thanks everybody
 
Maybe integrate the USB 3.0 drivers into the WinPE part of the installer? I could see this working but it may take a bit of tinkering.
 
The PE version for Windows 8 is 4.0. You would think it would have native USB 3.0 support, but sadly it doesn't. drvload doesn't always work smoothly either. You would have to load the driver via Shift+F10 (using the Windows 8 install media), unplug the USB stick, and plug it back in in order for it to work on USB 3.0 speeds. Now one of two things can happen; It can continue to work or the Windows installer will have dropped the USB key as the source media and require a restart.

Anyone care to play a game of lab-rat? :p
 
I'd much rather stick to USB 2.0 if I had to fiddle around with that, haha.

Seriously, we have been subjected to wait times for Windows installed since the first Windows version was released. I can wait for Windows 7 or 8 to be installed in 15 minutes using USB 2.0. Maybe I'll fart around with this as a pet project one day.
 
I'll mess with it as well. I'd prefer to use USB 3.0 for the main purpose of installing.
 
just installed w8 using usb 2.0... worked fine and fairly quick, wouldn't take the risk.
 
Hey guys, OP here...I actually found my old corsair flash voyager 2.0 stick....I got bored and decided to install Windows 8 and see how fast this thing runs....btw the speed of this USB stick is around 20 to 25 mb read

Holy smokes, Win 8 installed in about 6 min....this is from when I press start, and it actually starts installing....to the first page when I am required to punch in my info....I could have sworn Win 7 from a CD was like 20 minutes? Man Win 8 on USB 2 is freaking fast!
 
Hey guys, OP here...I actually found my old corsair flash voyager 2.0 stick....I got bored and decided to install Windows 8 and see how fast this thing runs....btw the speed of this USB drive is around 20 to 25 mb read

Holy smokes, Win 8 installed in about 6 min....this is from when I press start, and it actually starts installing....to the first page when I am required to punch in my info....I could have sworn Win 7 from a CD was like 20 minutes? Man Win 8 on USB 2 is freaking fast!

And so how much time would be saved, end to end, with a USB 3 drive? Remember that the install time includes a significant amount of time where Windows itself is spending time doing file expansion or "processing." And what is the "benefit" of saving say 1 or 2 minutes on a 6 minute install?

If you did this operation say 3-4 times every day, it would be worth the trouble to solve all the issues, but a one-time operation? I'd say that this entire thread took more time than the time the OP would have saved using a USB 3 drive.
 
where Windows itself is spending time doing file expansion or "processing." And what is the "benefit" of saving say 1 or 2 minutes on a 6 minute install?

I believe the expanding part is all file copy without compression. The WIM in the installation source is extracted, and I'm pretty sure the only compression is the single instance storage (meaning if you have multiple images inside a wim, all with the same file, there will only be one file inside the wim and pointers back to it for each image).

It's really just a file copy from the source WIM to the installation disk. I could be wrong, but those are my observations. The quicker you can copy the data, the quicker it installs.

I could have sworn Win 7 from a CD was like 20 minutes?
Depends on the speed of the drive. Win7 from USB is a ~10 minute install, too.



If I had a motherboard with USB 3 ports, I'd volunteer to come up with a recipe to get the drivers installed into the installation media. It shouldn't be that difficult with WinPE...
 
And so how much time would be saved, end to end, with a USB 3 drive? Remember that the install time includes a significant amount of time where Windows itself is spending time doing file expansion or "processing." And what is the "benefit" of saving say 1 or 2 minutes on a 6 minute install?

If you did this operation say 3-4 times every day, it would be worth the trouble to solve all the issues, but a one-time operation? I'd say that this entire thread took more time than the time the OP would have saved using a USB 3 drive.

Yeah I am happy with the results from USB 2 speeds....I mean even if USB 3 was faster, I don't know if its worth the hassle...assuming people say USB3 won't work anyway, and will default to USB2 speeds

Unless someone is still curious and up to the task to try it out....I timed it at 6 minutes with USB2 on a corsair flash voyager :)
 
It's crazy how people are JUST now doing this... I've been installing Windows 7 from USB for like 3-4 years now... It's always been fast, and the most prefered way to install. I have a deticated Windows 7 Flash drive ive had laying around for a looong time. Anytime i need it i pull it out and stick it in (thats what she said :p)
 
It's crazy how people are JUST now doing this... I've been installing Windows 7 from USB for like 3-4 years now... It's always been fast, and the most prefered way to install. I have a deticated Windows 7 Flash drive ive had laying around for a looong time. Anytime i need it i pull it out and stick it in (thats what she said :p)

I don't think everyone is hitting on the point of doing it for the first time in general but actually doing it with a USB 3.0 flash drive for the first time. If such is actually possible, it'll make some of us happy.
 
I would recommend just getting a good USB 2.0 stick like a sandisk or etc... I have had no luck gettingi it to install via 3.0 ports and really it does not take that long installing off USB to begin with... just my 2 cents...
The question is about a USB stick, not the ports. A USB 3.0 stick should work just fine on USB 2.0 ports.
 
I don't think everyone is hitting on the point of doing it for the first time in general but actually doing it with a USB 3.0 flash drive for the first time. If such is actually possible, it'll make some of us happy.

It's already been said that it can't happen... And if there is a lick of possibility of it happening, then it would require a shitload of work.. thus I'll stick to just 2-3 more mins of installation time :rolleyes:
 
If somebody is curious, try installing it on a decently fast USB2 stick and let us know of your results. I got 6-ish minutes from the time I hit go and it starts installing....till the first screen pops up asking for my info

If it were possible with USB3, I think maybe 3 minutes? But heck, its already blazing fast at 6 minutes, why bother? Taking a pee pee and washing your hands is already 2 minutes :D
 
It's already been said that it can't happen... And if there is a lick of possibility of it happening, then it would require a shitload of work.. thus I'll stick to just 2-3 more mins of installation time :rolleyes:

It can happen. We wouldn't be on [H] if we didn't intend to tinker & toil until we have our satisfaction at making the best & fastest method work regardless of the time put in.
 
It can happen. We wouldn't be on [H] if we didn't intend to tinker & toil until we have our satisfaction at making the best & fastest method work regardless of the time put in.

In principle, I agree. But there are so many more opportunities, hardware and software, for tinkering and optimization, than I would ever have time for, so it's a question of priorities.
 
In principle, I agree. But there are so many more opportunities, hardware and software, for tinkering and optimization, than I would ever have time for, so it's a question of priorities.

After looking at it a bit, it's not that hard of a process to complete. Testing it is another dilemma for me, since I don't have a need to install Windows 8 at this time.
 
Like as I said before, drvload doesn't always work as it should. I've tried to get network card drivers up and going with 50/50 success.
 
The Unattends are for automating things. I'm sure you could find a method for injecting drivers using it, but it would most likely just be calling drvload.

Like as I said before, drvload doesn't always work as it should. I've tried to get network card drivers up and going with 50/50 success.

That's the [H] part of it. If it doesn't work, find the settings in the INF that are breaking it and fix it!

Can someone point me to the drivers in question and I'll give it a shot. I don't have any way to test them, but I can at least try to integrate them.
 
I have a 16GB USB 3.0 flash drive and I used the Win7 USB boot maker thingie from Microsoft with the Win8 ISO. Plugged it into the USB 3.0 port of my laptop, and I got a bunch of errors when booting from the flash drive. Come to find out, it was because the flash drive needed to have some command line Diskpart stuff done to it to realign the sectors or something like that. Also, USB 3.0 controller was not the Intel controller (laptop is a SB i7 with mobile x6x series chipset). Did a bit of Googling and found out that I needed to plug it in and boot from a USB 2.0 port. Worked like a champ.

As others have already stated, there is no USB 3.0 driver support built in to the Windows Installer, so it really makes no sense to even try and use it. Another option, albeit a hell of a lot more expensive, would be to get a small (<= 32GB) SSD and put it in an external enclosure if your system supports booting from a USB HDD vs a USB Flash Drive...you'll likely have to manually Diskpart it to make it bootable before copying the contents from the install DVD.

Diskpart Instructions said:
Diskpart
List disk
Select disk n
(where n is the number that was given for your stick in List disk)
Clean
Create partition primary
Format fs=ntfs quick
Assign
Active
Exit
 
That diskpart script just dumps all the partitions on the drive, makes on big one, assigns it the next drive letter and marks the partition active. That should have all been done with the USB tool. Maybe the drive had some weird partitions on it or something that was causing problems...

The windows installer is WinPE and you can load drivers into it. I'm going to try to build one soon, but I don't have a USB 3.0 flash drive or USB 3.0 ports, so I can't test it. But I should be able to tell if I can get the drivers to install as well as it still booting. I've been busy, otherwise I would have done the install already.

If someone else wants to try, everything you need is in this thread...
 
I just injected the USB 3 drivers into my Win8 installation without any problems. I borrowed the use of the DISM command from the link above, as I was looking to use drvload -- however this was much easier with DISM (I often forget how awesome this command is!)

Here's the link instructions -- if you've got a USB 3.0 flash drive and ports, let us know how it works!

Requirements
1. Windows 8 ISO
2. Winodws 7 USB Tool (optional)
3. USB Drivers (Extracted to C:\Temp\USB3)
4. USB Flash Drive (referenced as drive D: )

Instructions:
1. Prepare a Win8 bootable flash drive. If you don't know how to do it manually, or don't want to, use the Windows 7 USB tool.

2. Extract your drivers to C:\Temp\USB3. Make sure the INF files are in this folder and not in a sub directory. For example, you don't want an x64 folder in here, you want the INF files for the 64bit install. If you know what you're doing, and don't want to do this, just adjust the path down below.

3. Open an administrative command prompt.

4. Mount the Boot.WIM to C:\Mount
Code:
md C:\mount
dism /mount-image /imagefile:d:\sources\boot.wim /mountdir:c:\mount /index:2
* for anyone wondering, index 1 is a WinPE image, index 2 is the Windows Setup.

Code:
Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 6.2.9200.16384

Mounting image
[==========================100.0%==========================]
The operation completed successfully.


5. Inject the drivers into the image
Code:
dism /image:c:\mount /add-driver /driver:c:\temp\usb3

Code:
C:\Windows\system32>dism /image:e:\mount /add-driver /driver:e:\temp\usb3

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 6.2.9200.16384

Image Version: 6.2.9200.16384

Searching for driver packages to install...
Found 4 driver package(s) to install.
Installing 1 of 4 - c:\temp\usb3\nusb3hub.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 2 of 4 - c:\temp\usb3\nusb3xhc.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 3 of 4 - c:\temp\usb3\rusb3hub.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
Installing 4 of 4 - c:\temp\usb3\rusb3xhc.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
The operation completed successfully.

6. Umount the image and commit the changes
Code:
DISM /unmount-wim /mountdir:c:\mount /commit

Code:
Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 6.2.9200.16384

Image File : d:\sources\boot.wim
Image Index : 2
Saving image
[==========================100.0%==========================]
Unmounting image
[==========================100.0%==========================]
The operation completed successfully.
7. If you're never going to use them again, cleanup your workspace
Code:
rd c:\mount
rd c:\temp\usb3 /s/q

Thats it. Reboot and you should be up and running with a version of WinPE that has the USB 3 drivers of your choice installed.
 
USB 2 is around 6 mins, What's the install time with the USB 3 stick? Have you tried it yet?
 
Nice work, Demon10000 :)

I'll use your tutorial when I need to reinstall Windows 8 or Server 2012. :D
 
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