This tutorial as based on fujianabc's Reboot.pro forum post 'NT 6.x fast installer: install Win7 directly to USB external drive' and his excellent scripts (now with reg tweak by 'cdob' from reboot.pro -USBBootWatcher is no longer required). it does not matter what is on the internal hard disk of the target system, even if the internal hard disk is broken/not working.
So now you can try Windows 7 without needing to install it onto your internal hard disk! IT WILL ONLY WORK ON A USB 2.0 PORT (see instructions at the end of this page for instructions on how to add USB 3 drivers). Now you’re done! Simply place the modified “boot.wim” and “install.Please note: This tutorial enables you to prepare a USB drive so that you can boot directly to Windows 7 from the USB drive. Replace the “boot.wim” and “install.wim” files If you are encountering dism errors when trying to run the above commands make sure that the wim files unmounted successfully by running the following command:Īfter that command finishes, try mounting the wim that was giving you errors again and adding the drivers.ĥ.
If you want to update all of them you will have to repeat the below process for the indexes you want to update.ĭism /mount-wim /wimfile:install.wim /index: /mountdir:mountĭism /mount-wim /wimfile:install.wim /index:3 /mountdir:mount It will give you the output of the different installers and their indexes. You can list all the indexes and their contents by typing in:
This file has a couple of different index values depending on what type of Windows you are installing. Next, do the same thing to the “install.wim” file.
Once open, navigate to the USB3_Fix folder in the cmd shell, and type in the following commands in this order to update the boot.wim file:ĭism /mount-wim /wimfile:boot.wim /index:2 /mountdir:mountĭism /image:mount /add-driver:"usb3" /recurseĭism /unmount-wim /mountdir:mount /commit (Click Start on Windows 7, or Windows Key + Q on Windows 8, type in “cmd” and then right-click on the cmd application and choose Run as Administrator.) Open up your cmd shell as an administrator. Update the “boot.wim” and “install.wim” Files Move the “boot.wim” file and “install.wim” into your “USB3 Fix” folder we created earlier.Ĥ. Open up your USB thumb drive that has your Windows 7 image on it and navigate to the Sources folder.
Next, we need to get the files we need to install/add the drivers on. Get the “boot.wim” and “install.wim” files Now extract all the drivers into that USB3 folder.ģ. Inside that folder create two separate folders: “USB3” and “mount”. For the purpose of this example lets just call it “USB3_Fix.” Once you download the drivers, we will need to make a folder for the drivers we want to slipstream into our installation media. Look up your Motherboard’s drivers, see which ones you need and download them. The keyboard and mouse worked great in the BIOS, but as soon as the Windows 7 installation media loaded and presented that familiar Language Select screen, I had no cursor or keyboard.įor your installer to work with your computer, make sure you grab the proper USB 3.0 drivers. Intro: If you have tried to install Windows 7 using a USB Flash Drive on a system that only has USB 3.0 ports, you might have found that you couldn’t get past the Language Select screen of the installer as your keyboard and mouse didn’t work.