Installing Windows 7 - USB 3.0

Associate
Joined
6 Jul 2016
Posts
22
Afternoon all,

Recently built myself a new PC and i'm trying to install Windows 7, however with the new motherboard I only have USB 3.0 and not 2.0 (I've looked through BIOS and i cant find the USB 3.0 to 2.0 option)

I've tried downloading the drivers and then using command prompt to update the two files needed to make 3.0 work... but they didn't.

Do i continue the Windows 7 path (If anyone has another way of doing it) or just bite the bullet and get Windows 10? (I've read that Windows 10 has 3.0 drivers in the install?)

Thanks,
 
Soldato
Joined
11 Oct 2009
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16,548
Location
Greater London
I don't understand? What motherboard is it? The manufacturer site will have the drivers and will contain an installer to install it for you. USB 3.0 is backwards compaptible with USB 2.0 so there will be no issues using older USB devices with it.
 
Associate
Joined
19 Mar 2011
Posts
780
my son just recently built a new pc with no external drives, we had win10 iso on a usb stick, i think he had to press F12 or F8 at power up to get the boot options so he could select boot from usb.
you would do the same regardless of it been win 7 or 10 usb 3 or 2 it does not matter usb3 will work in usb2 slot
 
Associate
OP
Joined
6 Jul 2016
Posts
22
I have a usb stick and cd to install windows 7... however i get this message

imagefile340.jpg


When i've googled it, its due to USB 3.0, some people in bios can change it to 2.0 and then it works fine - however i cant seem to find the option.

I have a z170x gaming 7 motherboard.

Thanks,
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Oct 2002
Posts
2,617
I don't understand? What motherboard is it? The manufacturer site will have the drivers and will contain an installer to install it for you. USB 3.0 is backwards compaptible with USB 2.0 so there will be no issues using older USB devices with it.

The issue is that the Windows 7 installation does not have drivers for USB 3 controllers, so if you're trying to install from USB (memory stick or DVD drive) on a system which only has USB 3 then your stuck.

OP if you're having issues following guides for adding the USB 3 drivers and cannot install from an internal DVD drive, then I would suggest you just get Windows 10.
 
Associate
Joined
26 Jul 2008
Posts
2,064
Location
Cowley, Middx
I have a usb stick and cd to install windows 7... however i get this message

imagefile340.jpg


When i've googled it, its due to USB 3.0, some people in bios can change it to 2.0 and then it works fine - however i cant seem to find the option.

I have a z170x gaming 7 motherboard.

Thanks,

I don't think you need to change anything, you just need to download the intel SATA preinstall driver and place the file on the drive and when you get that message again just select the browse option and navigate to where you placed the driver, select it and you should be able to proceed (changing to USB2 wouldn't have helped since from windows 7 up you will need a special driver (like you had to do in the XP days when you was installing it to a SATA hard drive) before you could continue with the installation and windows 10 is in that club as well).

This is also likely going to help the OP as well unless the manufacturer doesn't offer USB installing compatibility for windows 7 installs via USB.
 
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