Windows 7 Install Problem

So I'm trying to install Windows 7 Pro (RTM) onto my computer, and I can get to the "install now" part fine. The problem comes just before installing Windows 7. For some reason I get a message that I am "missing a CD/DVD drive device driver", and to "insert a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive into the computer", and I can't continue any installation without it. I'm quite confused by this since my CD/DVD drive works fine, so wouldn't that mean that I already have the driver for that?

All help is greatly appreciated. I just want to get Windows 7 onto my computer ASAP cause I am sick of Vista!

Thanks

 

sorry for double post but can anybody help?

 

Are you attempting to upgrade from within Windows, or are you booting from the DVD?

 

Are you trying to install W7 by booting from a DVD or from within Vista with the DVD in the drive?

If you are installing from a DVD and you get to the "Install Now" screen then the CD/DVD driver is working (actually it is built in to the current generation of BIOS or Motherboard, not sure, but I know you don't need one on a disk).

Make sure you don't have ANY external devices plugged into the PC i.e. USB devices, printer, scanner, etc. If so, remove and try again.

If you are trying to install from within Vista, try instead extracting and burning the W7 RTM ISO to a DVD and making the DVD bootable. Boot with the DVD.

Are you trying to install to the PC in your sig or something else? If it is the PC in your Sig, make sure that 320GB external HD is disconnected.

 

Yeah I am trying to boot from DVD on startup. And I have no other devices connected.

I'm going to borrow my friend's external USB DVD drive to try and see if that works. Do you think that could help?

 

I don't think the external USB optical drive will work, if the internal one won't (I think you might have an issue with your W7 disc).

I actually installed W7 on my laptop using a bootable USB flash drive. Instructions here: http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?t=7850. Try the EASY PROCESS" using the trial of ULTRAISO, the other method using "Unebootin" didn't work for me.

Possibly your DVD disc didn't burn correctly?

 

How do I find out if my motherboard can boot off USB drive?

And also, post #5 in that thread says:

My 8gb USB drive is "U3" compatible so how do I go abouts extracting the ISO on it?

Yeah that's what I thought too. But turns out I'm not the only one with this problem because I searched google and other people had this problem too but they were installing on a desktop so they could access their mobo's and disconnect/reconnect some cables that had to do with the harddrive, so it doesn't really apply to me.

 

Well, the easiest way is to make a bootable USB drive, change the boot order in your BIOS to boot from a USB HD first (yea, even though it is a flash drive) and try it.

I would still like to know if you are trying to install W7 on the laptop in your Sig?

I am not sure how a "U3" drives software works (the software is what makes it U3, i.e. some Sandisk drives).

I have what used to be a 4GB Sandisk U3 compatable drive but removed the software out of the package. Now it is just a regular flash drive. As a matter of fact that is the drive I used to install W7 from using ULTRAISO, following the instructions.

To answer your question though, you can just use a free program sucn as 7-Zip (nice program to have on your PC anyway) to extract the files from the ISO to your "U3" drive. I have no idea what makes a U3 drive bootable though. It has to be bootable before the file transfer as the transfer only extracts the ISO files to the drive, it does not make it bootable.

I would just borrow or buy a regular 4GB flash drive and use the UltraIso method. It only takes a few minutes to prepare and you are done. 4G flash drives these days are on sale weekly from just about anywhere for $10.

 

Well I guess I don't really mind uninstalling U3 from the drive, so I can just do that and use it as a regular flash drive. Thing is, I tried to do the USB install method using a 2gb flash drive but UltraISO wouldn't allow me to put the win7 files onto the drive; I couldn't see it in the drop down menu.

I also picked up my friend's external DV drive so I might as well give that a try (even though you guys did say it might now work).

Will post back later with results.

 

Considering the Windows 7 ISO is over 3 GB, I don't think a 2 GB flash drive would work. Can you get your hands on a larger one?

Alternatively, an external USB DVD drive may well work just fine. It's what I've used to install W7 on my netbook several times.

I'm baffled by your original error though. Seems to me that if it sees your DVD drive enough to get to the Install screen, it shouldn't lose it after that. Makes me suspicious that the disk itself might be bad. Have you tried re-burning it at the slowest speed?

 

Burning the DVD again at the lowest speed is my recommendation, too. I would also download the ISO again to make sure the download wasn't corrupted.

 

You need at least a 4GB USB Drive for W7 (either 32bit or 64bit RTM will fit).
When using the ULTRAISO method follow the instructions exactly.

1) Download the free UltraISO trial
2) Start UltraISO as administrator
3) "Burn" the iso image to the USB stick by following these steps

With UltraISO:
- Open the image of Vista/Win7 with UltraISO
- Under BOOTABLE tab choose WRITE DISK IMAGE
- Choose your USB stick under "Disk Drive"
- Choose a method (It's recommended to use USB-HDD+)
- Press Write
- Make sure to change your BOOT order in BIOS to boot from your USB drive first

The highlighted step is critical.

I don't know what I was thinking but of course you can use an external DVD drive to install. I believe my thought process was that if it wouldn't install from the internal it won't install from the external.

I am with others with regards to downloading a fresh copy of the RTM ISO and re-burning the disk. If you have problems installing from the USB where it stalls at the "Install Now" screen I would tend to believe that the ISO is corrupted.

 

You can try this too. Just another good method. It works perfectly for me.

 

These requirements are accurate. I have used this method also before finding ULTRAISO (which is so simple).

I just might add that I do most of my prep work on my desktop which happens to be XP. "Diskpart", when used on XP will not see a USB device. That is why the requirements list Vista as a minimum.

 

So I tried the external DVD drive and got the same message saying I'm missing a driver.

I do happen to have an 8gb USB drive so I guess that's what I'll try next. If that doesn't work then I guess I'll try re-downloading and then either re-burning to another disc or put it on my USB again.

EDIT: So I tried installing using my buddy's Win7 installation disc and it worked perfectly fine. Now using Windows 7 Pro Thanks for all the help guys!