Installing Windows 7 off a USB stick is meant to be fast right?...

Stonedofmoo · 13 Sep 2009 at 10:21

I followed the guides and copied Windows 7 install files onto a Freecom USB2 stick. The stick isn't anything special but it manages 15Mb/sec in HDTach on the reads and is fast enough to be suitable for Readyboost.

So I tried booting and installing windows off it and it takes AGES. I mean literally 5-10 minutes just to get past the white bar that loads across to the right, something my DVD manages in about a minute.

Any clues people? Maybe it's a bug in the BIOS because I've noticed the performance of my Corsair Voyager 8Gb is pretty slow when booting into DOS too.

daztrouk · 13 Sep 2009 at 10:45

had the same issue myself, and managed to fix it somehow. Can't remember exactly what i done, but i'm pretty sure i changed somehing in the bios. Not great help, but a point in the right direction. I'm sure it'll come back to me.........

OLDPHART · 13 Sep 2009 at 12:32

Hi, l had no prob's installing Win 7 from USB stick used this little app to set my USB stick up, and it flew on.

A Bootle USB -http://www.askvg.com/a-bootable-usb...e-to-install-windows-vista-server-2008-and-7/

Go into your Bios and select USB and move it to 1st boot,(my bios you go to HARD DISK BOOT PRIORITY>SELECT USB>MOVE IT UP TO TOP[use - or = key's] save and reboot, and it will detect your USB STICK and install your OS. When mine was finished installing Win 7 it automatically set it self back to the HD WITH THE OS on.

Hope this help's.

Stonedofmoo · 13 Sep 2009 at 14:59

Yeah I've got no problem with that, the issue is the performance once it's already started. Doing some Googling it would appear to be an issue with Intel chipsets.

MKay · 13 Sep 2009 at 15:41

I installed Windows 7 from a flash drive and didn't really notice any issues here. You should check how fast it copies the Windows 7 files off of the flash drive into Windows (rather than relying on a benchmark) just to see if maybe it isn't a performance bottle neck. The Windows 7 install is basically 1 giant image file that needs to be unpacked to your HD, so how fast it installs depends a lot on how quickly it can read the big .wim file.

The delay sounds more like the installer is confused about something to do with your motherboard hardware, and is waiting a long time for something to respond before moving on. The Windows 7 progress bar is a bit weird though. The first bit goes really quickly for me, then I sit there waiting ages for it to do something. I think a clean install takes somewhere around 40 minutes for me.

Fuzz · 13 Sep 2009 at 21:18

. Opps wrong thread haha

Aod · 13 Sep 2009 at 21:20

when i installed Win7 to my laptop from my USB flash drive, the time from boot to where it was unpacking the files on the hard drive took about 30 seconds.

5abr3 · 14 Sep 2009 at 00:35

Ran fine here from an external HDD onto my current AM3 machine and very quickly too (first time I installed an older version took forever from disc).

_Jimlad_ · 14 Sep 2009 at 15:06

OLDPHART said:
Hi, l had no prob's installing Win 7 from USB stick used this little app to set my USB stick up, and it flew on.

A Bootle USB -http://www.askvg.com/a-bootable-usb...e-to-install-windows-vista-server-2008-and-7/

Go into your Bios and select USB and move it to 1st boot,(my bios you go to HARD DISK BOOT PRIORITY>SELECT USB>MOVE IT UP TO TOP[use - or = key's] save and reboot, and it will detect your USB STICK and install your OS. When mine was finished installing Win 7 it automatically set it self back to the HD WITH THE OS on.

Hope this help's.

cheers for the link buddy, makes it so simple