Question about no OS option order on Sager/Clevo

Recently got my Malibal P151HM1. However, I opted to not get the OS installed and also removed the DVD drive from a hard caddy.

Since I didn't have an external cd-rom drive I opted to install Win7 with a usb bootable approach.

But I spent 3 hours figuring out why it couldn't find the hard drives (1 SSD, 1 HD) saying an error has occured and such.

It occured to me that the chipset drivers weren't even installed and lead me to believe my order wasn't even tested (maybe due to the influx of the 6990m ordrs?). Is it common to not have even the chipset drivers installed when opting for no OS?

Would love to here from your experience on that matter.

 

You aren't making any sense. 100% of all computers with no OS have no chipset drivers. If there is no OS, there is no way to install chipset drivers. Chipset drivers can only be installed after the OS is installed or during the install process when you press F6 to load special drivers during Windows installation but this step is uneccessary in most situations.

The Windows CD contains all the drivers you need and will automatically load them upon install. If you cannot find the harddrives, then you have to check their status in the Bios.

Once your OS is installed, then you can install the chipset drivers.

 

You'll need to buy an external DVD-ROM to install Windows.

This is why I decided to go with the P170HM instead of the P150HM; I wanted two hard drives PLUS an optical drive always present. Having to plug in an optical every time i need to use one is annoying.

Check Newegg. They have some decent ones for around $30.00

 

no OS = no drivers. All your drivers are installed when you install windows.

 

That's not necessary. You can install Windows just fine from USB.

Microsoft Store Online

However, you do have to be careful you're plugging it in to the non-USB 3.0 ports. USB 3.0 is not recognized by the Windows installer as they are not part of the standard driver set. USB 2.0 ports will work fine.

As for chipset drivers, others are correct. Those are only accessible via Windows. No machine will ever come with them installed when you don't have an OS. The bios is what is in charge of recognizing your hard drives and install media.

Try checking in Bios to be sure that they're there. It sounds like from your issue that you may have been trying to use a USB install from a 3.0 port though- the error is pretty cryptic.

 

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology F6 Driver Diskettes

Download the one you need, extract the zip to a flash drive, click to load driver option during Win 7 setup, browse the flash drive for the drivers and load.

You'll be good to go then.


--Note this is assuming you're booting the install from a USB 2.0 port and getting all the way to the partition selection screen.

 

This is correct! That was the problem I was running into.

Sorry guys! I figured the chipset drivers and such would install after windows. Basically having no external DVD drive and only usb bootable, I indeed figured out the hard way that USB 3.0 is the problem!

Reading this post only verifies my new findings! Thanks again for the quick reply.