Just learned something about installing Win 7

D

Deadjasper

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Oct 28, 2001
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Made me pull my hair out for almost 2 hours and the Internet was no help at all.

Loading win 7 Ultimate on a Mini ITX system with 4 USB ports on the back, 2 are 3.0 and the others are 2.0. This system does not have a CD drive in it, I was using a USB DVD Drive to do the install. It was pulled into the 2 USB 3.0 port (one for data and one for power). The mouse and KB were plugged into the USB 2.0 ports.

Every time Setup started it would halt complaining about no find the CD/DVD drivers. Googling this problem I found several "solutions" and none of them were the correct one. I finally had one of those Ah Ha moments and the problem magically appeare3d in my brain along with the solution and it had nothing to do with a CD\DVD Driver.

What was happening was this. During the BIOS part of the boot up all 4 USB ports functioned normally but when the BIOS passed control over to the Windows installer the 2 USB 3.0 ports dropped out and the DVD drive was lost in space.

I dug out an old PS2 KB and mouse and then was able to get around this problem.

Granted you're not gonna run into this scenario every day but when you do it can be a real time waster.

Happy building.
 
I had this issue once as well. I didn't have a PS2 keyboard hanging around though and had to tab through the install. It was a blast.
 
I've learned to avoid plugging anything into USB 3.0 ports when deploying Windows. Glad you got that figured out. I would have bypassed the mouse and the data cable on the USB DVD drive. The USB DVD drives usually never needed a 2nd cable for power (unless you're on USB 1.1) and the newer ones are a single cable.
 
I've found you basically have to read the manual to figure out which USB ports are off the chipset because it's not normally the obvious which ports are which. The last Motherboard I had, a Gigabyte ga-z68x-ud3h-b3 only has two USB ports that functioned for an install (and some headers on the board).

When it doubt, go to the manual. I'm sure they'll fix this eventually. But Windows 7 won't be around by them I'm sure, it's already out of mainstream support now so that means no new features.
 
I learned this a few years ago. I avoid using 3.0 slots until the drivers for it are installed.
 
Yup, Windows 7 came out before proper USB 3.0 went mainstream and thus IIRC doesn't natively support USB 3.0. Wasn't a big issue years ago because Intel with Thunderbolt held off USB 3.0's mass adoption intentionally to push their own (failed) successor.

I ran into this issue once more that drove me nearly mad when I tried to do a system restore from a new 2TB drive that was USB 3.0 compared to a previous 2.0 500GB drive. Now I make sure whatever backup program includes at least WinPE 4.0.

A minor inconvenience, but a subtle reminder of how old Windows 7 is getting. No thanks to Microsoft intentionally abandoning it feature wise after SP1 to avoid another XP and force 8 down peoples throats.

But I digress.
 
If you still use AMD boards then you'll know this problem by heart. Something to be said for native support
 
Fortunately the majority, if not all, of the new computers I deploy for clients have the USB 3.0 ports colored blue. Makes my life easier.
 
I knew what this was by the second sentence, because I hit the same "problem" a while back! Arrgrgh
 
You need to integrate the USB 3.0 drivers into your Windows 7 installation media to get around this.

The Windows 8 installation media has it pre-integrated, so no problems there.
 
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