help with clean install

hi,
ive put in a new ssd to replace the hdd on my ux32vd. when i turned on the computer it gives me the message, "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key"

i have my usb plugged in with the win7 iso (ive used the microsoft usb/dvd tool, although it says it could not load bootsect at the end if that is important).

i have pressed esc at the splash screen and chose my usb as the boot device but it proceeds to bring me back to the same message.

i have also entered bios and selected my usb as the primary boot device but that does not help either.

im concerned about my new computer not being able to work right. could someone please help me? i appreciate it! thanks!

 

Looks like your USB was not configured correctly. If you have the cd or another computer handy, that would be the best option. I use Yumi multi-boot USB creator to install my Linux and Windows OS's. I have not tried the Microsoft solution.

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The utilities tend to do these things for you. But two steps:
1. make usb-disk "active". (diskpart -> list -> select -> active, etc. Honestly don't know if that is truly necessary, or if it's just superstition - seems that most computers can still boot from an external drive not marked active. But some windows versions required it for "file systems" that had been mounted for a while..).
2. copy the structure from the windows iso over on the usb-drive. It's not supposed to be necessary to write a bootsector.

 

i finally got past that part by using another software to transfer the iso onto the usb but now i encounter a message saying,

"A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing..."

i tried putting the usb 3.0 drivers onto the usb but that doesnt do anything. i cant get past this part. can someone help me?

 

Until you can load the USB 3.0 drivers I recommend using the USB 2.0 port. Hope you have one!

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unfortunately every port is usb 3.0..

if i can get my hands on a usb dvd reader, would there be any problems installing windows 7?

edit: no matter what i do, i cant get past the message saying a cd/dvd drive device driver is missing..

 

Hah! That's definitely the winner right there. You can access the install files and launch the install program from the usb stick. But the core windows files don't support usb 3, because it uses a different driver stack.. when launched from the files you are already accessing. Logical. ...was the same problem with raid on some windows versions, by the way. Then again, it could just as well be that Windows requires a dvd/"cd" drive to be present during the install..

Either find the usb3.0 driver at the asus page, extract it so you see the inf files, put it on the usb stick. And then launch the "extra device driver" thing during the first initial install. That might work. Also would work to install new chipset drivers. Or possibly just to reinitialize the usb-driver during the install. As in pulling the stick out and inserting it again after the install halts completely. I'm not joking, by the way. That could work.

Just setting usb 2.0 in the bios would also have worked, of course.. if we had access to the bios. But we don't, since Asus are awesome.

I know this wasn't a problem on the first Win7 oem version, though. That they had actually fixed this. Did a lot of installs like this, and was happy that the xp problems didn't carry over... Weird that this should turn up again.

 

This is possibly the best method.

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/th...from-a-USB-3-0-Thumb-Drive-(FAST-installation!)

Follow the same advice but with the USB 3.0 driver from your laptop of course. It is rather advanced, but will ensure you have the drivers for future installs. Good luck!

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i had the same problem on my u36sd. At first when i used my usb 3.0 port the windows install booted fine but it could not read my flash drive when it was connected to the usb 3.0 port. It worked fine when i put it in the usb 2.0 port up until it asked for the same driver. From my theory, windows 7 does not have a driver for intel chipsets from sandy bridge and up in the installation. To rectify this i downloaded the intel rapid storage driver from the asus driver page for my laptop (check your laptop page). i then copied that driver to the flash drive i was using to install windows. I then pointed the windows installation to that driver and it worked fine after that.

 

I got the Win7 Install USB to start up but when I get to where I want to install Windows it's not letting me install in the brand new SSD I just bought. It asks "Where do you want to install Windows?" I chose Disk 1 Partition 1 Type Primary. The error I get is Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition. Anyone have a solution?

 

I always make my partitions with gparted instead of letting the OS setup do it. Download the gparted live ISO and put it on USB. Do your thing from there. Windows needs mbr partition table and ntfs file system.

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You would still need that extra 100mb or so of free, unpartitioned space, to get through the win7 install.

 

No you don't that is a common misconception. If you manually partition your drive, windows won't make that 100mb system partition. This enables you to take advantage of the 4 allowed primary partitions of the mbr partition table since windows itself isn't taking up 2.

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Really? What does the layout look like then? ..does it add a system space at the end of the last partition instead, or just use the first partition as the boot-drive?

 

It really depends on where you install the bootloader. When you install the bootloader, you get the choice of installing it to the mbr or to the boot sector of a partition. When you install Windows, the mbr is instructed to the Windows bootloader. If you don't have partition table planned, Windows will make 100mb for system boot files (along with other System recovery files), which the mbr is pointed to for boot instructions. However, if you have partitions premapped, Windows won't make a separate recovery partition and instead place the windows bootloader files and folders (bootmgr, Boot, System Volume Information, etc) directly on the destination partition, for me it was /dev/sda3, and the mbr will be directed to this partition upon boot up.

Hope that made some sense

PS. I use Windows very seldom, so my exerptise does not lie here. You might want to double check my statements before repeating elsewhere. Also, without the 100mb System Partition, you won't be able to boot into Windows or even recovery if the Windows partition gets corrupt in anyway. The 100mb allows you to boot into Windows recovery/diagnostics in the event that the "C:\" drive gets messed. Also, it is for Bitlocker I do believe.

My partition scheme looks like this:
/dev/sda1 - Ext4, Linux, boot flag
/dev/sda2 - ntfs, Steam - for my steam games lol.
/dev/sda3 - ntfs, Windows - for Windows OS

Here is a picture of my partition scheme

And here is my partition via fdsik:

Code:

tommy@p150hm:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 360.1 GB, 360080695296 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 43777 cylinders, total 703282608 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000f2dea

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048   493850623   246924288   83  Linux
/dev/sda2   *   559921152   703281151    71680000    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       493850624   559921151    33035264    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders, total 1465149168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3d963ce9

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1            2048   999426047   499712000   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2       999426048  1024002047    12288000   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3      1024002048  1465147391   220572672    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
tommy@p150hm:~$ 

 

Ok so here's an update. Last night after 8 hours of toil, I finally got Windows to install. What I did was get to the c prompt during the installation and go to diskpart and make the integrated SSD 'offline' and then I selected the SSD and used the 'clean' command. I had read that with SSDs you should leave it raw and windows will install on it.

Now here's problem number 2 which feels worse than problem number 1. After installing everything went swimingly. I started updating drivers, etc. I got to the point where I needed to do a Windows Update. There were 91 things that needed to be updated/installed. So I ran update with all 91 and that went fine until it went to restart - it wouldn't boot into windows. Instead it kept going into that startup restoration program over and over saying it couldn't fix the problem. I tried to delete the updates manually through cprompt, but this failed and I figured to hell with the hastle I'll just reinstall Windows since I know how now and then update windows one update at a time.

BIG MISTAKE. I tried doing EXACTLY what I had done before - doing diskpart, offlining the integrated SSD, etc - however this time the error isn't going away. It's still saying "Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition." I don't get it. I'm doing exactly what I did when I got it to work, but it's not working now. I can only surmise that the system is still recognizing the integrated SSD somehow. Does anyone have any suggestions? And is there another way to turn off the integrated SSD (I went into bios and made sure that it wasn't being loaded)? You guys are my only hope. I have 60 tabs open on my desktop trying to find a solution.