Work around for installing Windows 7 from USB Media

[smt556]

Hello all,

I received my Intense PC yesterday and struggled to boot from USB to install windows 7. I could not find my USB CD ROM so I did the initial install from USB from another laptop and pulled the hard drive and transfered it to the IntensPC hardware after the intial install. The hard drive was pulled after the first first reboot and was not allowed to sense any of the hardware from the intial PC. To be clear, all of the files were copied to the hard drive but I shut it down after the first reboot and switch the hard drive to the intensePC. The Windows 7 install proceide normally after this method.

Essentially, I got an F2 driver error but could not find a driver to get the USB to properly access the memory stick. The error I got was...

"A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk, CD, DVD or USB flash drive, please insert it now."

I use the "Boot windows 7 install from USB diskpart" Method to install all my OS's, it is generally much faster than installing from an optical drive as well. I only sell Intel based solutions and this always works with an Intel motherboard. It is likely that Windows 7(SP1) doesn't have the proper driver for the Phoenix Bios.


Fit-PC, can you provide the F2 driver to allow for Windows 7 to be loaded from a USB memory stick or another USB based work arround. I struggled for many hour trying to get Windows 7 installed.

So far the ExtremePC seems like a quality product. I'm looking forward to putting it through it's paces.

Thanks

Steven

[gabrielh]

Can you please try to use this guide http://www.fit-pc.com/wiki/index.php/Ho ... _USB_stick for the Windows 7 installation?
That method is much more simple, and does not requires any special driver

[smt556]

That's the method I followed.

I'm not having any problem booting off the media. I see the Windows 7 install screen and then the first interactive screen but get the F2 driver error. It just seems like a USB Driver issue.

Just for kicks I'll go through every step on the link you provided. The diskpart steps are all the same but the copy and bootsect /nt60 e: method is a bit different.

I've never had any problem on the many Intel boxes I put together.

I'll let you know how it goes. I have a new SSD drive to install later today.

Thanks

Steven

[gabrielh]

Please be sure to use the USB2 ports, and not the USB3 ones. The USB3 ports are marked blue. I will follow your progress to support you

[smt556]

I ended up finding my optical drive.

Thanks for the help.