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Windows 7 installation!

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NutmegCT

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
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Yes, I know, I don't use Windows. But the air museum does, and I'm trying to install Win7 on the desktops before WinXP support evaporates.

Thirty minutes into the installation, I get "Required cd/dvd drive device driver is missing. Browse for missing driver files."

Which of course is a bit nebulous.

Systems are all Dell desktops with 2.4G cpu, 2G ram, 80G HD. Now running WinXP SP3.

Boot from install DVD.
Click Install Windows 7.
Choose country, language, etc.
Click Proceed.

Thirty minutes later, the error message occurs.

I rebooted in XP, copied the XP cd/dvd device drivers that are in use to the hard drive, then tried installation again. At the point "Browse for drivers" I moved to the new driver folder on the HD. Install says "no drivers found".

Before I toss all six systems down the stairs and buy six old Remington typewriters ... any suggestions?

By the way, this problem shows up in lots of Google searches. But there are so many suggested solutions, with different symptoms and different hardware, it'll take me a year to try them all. I've tried about a dozen suggestions - but no luck yet. Same "missing cd/dvd driver" message every time.

:wall:

Thanks.
Tom
hmmm - never had these problems with typewriters ...
 
Have you checked that the drive & Mobo are on the hardware compatibility list? Kind of sounds like the boot CD for Win 7 doesn't have a driver that recognizes the drive.

But that's just a SWAG since I'm still running XP myself.
 
Thanks Randall. I ran a software compatibility check, but didn't do a hardware check. MS has an upgrade advisor - I hope that includes hardware diagnostics. None of the motherboards or drives are listed on their site as "incompatible" - but there's not listed there as compatible either.

Interestingly, I also tried the Win7 installation on four other (all different) machines. Same "missing cd/dvd driver" problem. Weird.

Edit: I'm running the install from a MS Windows 7 install disk in the DVD drive. It's booting and running from that drive - seems strange it can't find the drivers for the drive it's already running on.

Tom
 
Not sure if Win 7 is the same, but with the earlier versions the install starts out using the BIOS drivers to 'talk' to the hardware. The BIOS drivers always work, but are slow. Then at some point, it tries to switch over to using the Windows drivers loaded from the install disk. Those drivers are really stupid, in that they have no idea what the previous configuration was. So the install process just goes through, driver by driver, and tries to load it. Each driver then looks around to see if it finds any hardware it can support. Takes a long time. Then finally, the install process tries to switch to calling the Win drivers to mount and access the file system on the install disc.

Way back when, we had a bunch of machines that Win NT would not install on without a special driver for the video card. Had to create a special install that loaded the special driver first (so one of the drivers that didn't work wouldn't try to grab the video).

Since you've got the same problem on multiple machines, I'm probably barking up the wrong tree. Just wanted to present a little background.

Here's the HCL for Win 7 (they've turned it into a web page)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/compatibility/win7/CompatCenter/Home
 
Hi Tom,
Have you gone HERE to download the Win7 drivers? It would be luck if the old XP drivers worked on 7. Especially if you are going from 32 to 64 bit.
 
Thanks gents. I assume I download the drivers when I'm running XP on the machine. Exactly how do I do that? I download them to a folder on the C drive? then reboot the Win7 installation and when the message "browse for drivers" appears, I point to the folder with the downloaded drivers?

Or do I actually install the Win7 drivers in my XP machine? (doesn't seem right)

Am I downloading actual individual driver files (which the Win7 disk will recognize)? or am I downloading a zip files of driver packages (which I hope the Win7 disk can use)?

At the start of the Dell download, I enter the Service Tag number. Then I'm asked to choose OS. It only lists BIOS, DOS, Win2000, WinME, WinXP, Not Applicable.

There's no Win7 to choose.

This "has the power to cloud men's minds".

Thanks.
Tom
PS - these machines are five years old. 32 bit. Running XP SP3.
 
I'd download the drivers to a thumb drive personally.Without a service tag, I can't see what format Dell has them in. If they are zipped though, you'll want to unzip them onto the thumb. If you can't find the win7 drivers from Dell, the drive manufacturer might have them.
 
Thanks Greg. When I put the XP drivers for the cd/dvd device on (1) a flash drive, (2) a CD, (3) the C drive, the installer didn't recognize them. Said "no drivers found". So I found the Toshiba Win7 cd/dvd drivers - but still the installer says "no drivers found".
 
I would try a different drive to install from.
 
"L.A. To Caswell, Me. and back in '74. 1000 miles stuck in third gear."

Now *that* must have been some trip!

I've tried the installation on about six different machines. Same problem regardless of which cd/dvd drive I use. I'm beginning to think there's a problem on the installer disk, especially as there are so many reports of the problem over the last several years.

Thanks.
Tom
 
Tom, I've been following your article with interest. I believe you have a bad install disk, reason, I have three Vista disks, all full blown programs, no updates and one of them will not install on anything due to a glitch on the disk in the install portion of the program. I believe the disk could be copied to another rewritable and with the proper knowledge, rewrite the install program. But in all reality, it isn't worth the effort, if it could be done. Can you borrow a copy from someone and see if it will install in your computer? If it will install, you could remove it afterwords, due to licensing restrictions and purchase a legal copy from a computer store. The bad disk with Vista on it I got from the internet! I'll get any new programs from the store, not the internet from now on. W-7 should jump on your computer, as will W-8, if that's your preference. PJ

Incidentally, not knowing all the proper terminology, all I can say is, that Windows 7 does it's own thing when put into the CD drive. You don't have to do anything but set back, answer a couple questions, write in the license number when asked and go have lunch while it's doing it's own thing! When you come back, just hit the start button! Your in! It can also be customized to your needs.
 
Thanks Paul. Like you, I'm betting that the disk and/or image is bad. It's a valid MS bootable ISO disk, which I purchased via TechSoup and downloaded from MS for the air museum. I burned several images using different DVD burners, but so far all have resulted in the same issue. Could be that all the burns were bad (doubtful), or the image itself is bad, altho' it's surprising so many other people have reported the same "driver not found" issue over the years.

Remember the good ol' days with CRC validity checks?

Onward through the fog!
Tom
 
Hard to say Tom, but I've burned a couple things before that somehow picked up a glitch in the program. I recopied the same disk and the same problem came back, yet the original disk worked fine. One of those weird things that someone more privy to these things than I am could possibly figure out. I do remember years ago when windows 95 first came out, it came on 13 3" floppies and there was a safe guard that Microsoft installed in the program to keep you from copying them. You could physically copy them, but they wouldn't install! I still have those 13 original disks. PJ
 
Corrupted on download would be my first guess.
 
and if re-downloading doesn't fix, I would slow down the burner. Typically the software attempts to go as fast as possible. I haven't had the problem like this in a while, but in the past, if I had repeated bad burns, I would slow the burn down to 4x or even 2x, and then have the software verify the burn.

The last time I ~thought~ I had a similar situation was a couple of months ago. Several disks (Ubuntu and Linux Mint OSes) that kept appearing to be bad on the system I was attempting to install on. Since I had a number of things it could have been (from bad disks to potentially bad burner), I started with the cheapest option: get new disks to burn with. After that, the target system still acted like they were bad. So, took the "bad" disks to another computer that had known good stuff and verified the disks were good. Turns out the optical drive in the target system was on its last legs, and replacing it brought things back into harmony.
 
This sounds like the problems many folks have with the Win 7 installer not recognizing the Dell SATA drivers. If you google "dell sata motherboard windows 7" you'll see numerous references. Some of the workarounds look pretty quick to try, especially the ones involving BIOS settings for the install.
 
Rob, Does cleaning the optical lens on the drive help any? Or is this just too obvious for those of us who have no knowledge of how these drives work? PJ
 
coldplugs said:
This sounds like the problems many folks have with the Win 7 installer not recognizing the Dell SATA drivers. If you google "dell sata motherboard windows 7" you'll see numerous references. Some of the workarounds look pretty quick to try, especially the ones involving BIOS settings for the install.
Click to expand...

I did find a lot of references to that. But BIOS has no HD and/or SATA setting options, other than the old HD "automatic" and "size" choices. Probably IDE drives. But I'm not buying all new drives just to *test* whether that's the problem. Really irksome, as in 20 years I've never had a MS installer fail like this - especially with the nebulous "cd/dvd drive device driver not found".

Yeesh.
Tom
 
PAUL161 said:
Rob, Does cleaning the optical lens on the drive help any? Or is this just too obvious for those of us who have no knowledge of how these drives work? PJ
Click to expand...
That's a bit obvious, but doesn't hurt to poke the obvious in to the mix. Even "the obvious" gets over looked from time to time. In my case cleaning didn't help the drive. So, I put in a new blu-ray drive, since the faulty drive was a really old DVD type anyway. I'd gotten my mileage out of the previous drive. :smile:
 
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