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I want to install Windows 7 on a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon 20FB-002LUS. I created a bootable USB stick with woeusb and the Windows 7 installation medium. However, when I boot from it I get a driver error:

A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB flash drive, please insert it now.

How do I figure out which specific driver is missing (I'm guessing USB 3.0)? How can I provide the driver?

I have access to a Linux desktop (not intel).

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  • How did you create the bootable USB?
    – user931000
    Commented May 14, 2019 at 22:03
  • @GabrielaGarcia See edit
    – Docconat
    Commented May 14, 2019 at 22:07
  • That's probably the problem. For better results use the official Media Creation Tool which is actually what you're prompted to use when downloading the ISO from Microsoft. This is the proper way to do it and also assure you're booting it in UEFI mode. Online after a successful installation you should follow the half-backed answer (the link is useful though and you should download all the required drivers for Win7 64-bit before installing).
    – user931000
    Commented May 14, 2019 at 22:11
  • @GabrielaGarcia The Media Creation Tool doesn't have a Linux version.
    – Docconat
    Commented May 14, 2019 at 22:14
  • No, it must be used in Windows but don't you have the preinstalled Windows 10? if not and you must use Linux, hopefully Ubuntu/Debian or variants, then I'm afraid MKUSB is the only tool that actually works with the new ISOs Microsoft published: help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb#Windows_USB_install_drive
    – user931000
    Commented May 15, 2019 at 0:33

1 Answer 1

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The problem turned out to be (after trial and error) missing USB 3.0 drivers, which is a very common issue when installing Win7 on newer systems.

The drivers have to be injected into the USB (specifically, I think boot.wim). Microsoft recommend dism to do this. I had little patience for Windows's horrendous command line so I was able to find a GUI wrapper for DISM: https://github.com/mikecel79/DISMGUI/releases

Using this I added the USB 3.0 drivers and the installation proceeded successfully. Funnily enough, the installed Windows 7 did not have USB 3.0 drivers and could not read the USB drive it had just been installed from. There was a similar story with the memory card reader, the wireless adapter, as well as the dock (which has an ethernet port). So I had effectively painted myself into a corner, as I needed drivers to access any external resources but I needed to access the resources to get the drivers.

I was able to resolve the catch 22 by creating a Linux live USB. I booted the laptop from this and connected to the internet (note that I needed a special version of the Linux ISO which contained my non-free wireless driver). Then I downloaded the Windows USB 3.0 driver and put on the Window drive using the Linux live environment (I should have added the wireless driver too, but I wasn't sure which one was the correct one). After this I booted into Windows, installed the USB 3.0 driver, and the rest was straightforward.

You might ask, was it worth all that effort? Absolutely, Windows 10 is an godawful OS and Windows 7 worked beautifully.

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  • But Windows 7 will be out of support in a years or so. I don't see the point of using a much older OS than the machine itself, even if officially supported by the manufacturer, unless in a professional setting with specific software that hasn't been updated yet to work with the new OS version.
    – user931000
    Commented May 25, 2019 at 15:17
  • @GabrielaGarcia I don't see a point in coming to a question about running an OS when you don't have any interest in running that OS.
    – Docconat
    Commented Jun 19, 2019 at 5:24
  • Not a discussion, this is just an answer where I decided to comment to warn others. It's not about you, you do what you want. It's to let others know that in spite of this being a recent question/answer, using Win7 in such machine is a very bad a idea and its support will end soon and no OS Should be used past its due date.
    – user931000
    Commented Jun 19, 2019 at 13:35

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