Vista DVD v USB = Missing drives?

[AthlonXP1800]

Maybe the OP is confusing. If one ISO can see the drives in WinPE and the other can't, the the boot.wim isn't the same.

Re-reading the OP, it's Vista on DVD and Vista+SP2 on USB. The USB setup isn't able to see the drives to install to, but the DVD can see the drives.

You said "If one ISO can see the drives in WinPE and the other can't, the the boot.wim isn't the same." No the boot.wim is the SAME for original Vista iso downloaded from Microsoft that can be put on DVD OR USB Stick! If people want to modified or integrated SP1/SP2 or drivers to iso then boot.wim will be modified so it will never be same compared to original boot.wim.

Yes the OP post is very confusion.

OP said DVD is original Vista that can see the drives but later on OP said "I am going to now make a DVD with one of the intergrated SP2 ISOs to see if they allow the installer to see the disks again?" That is getting really very confused. Why make a DVD that can see the disks drives already with integrated SP2 to see if they allow the installer to see the disks again? Made no sense, I assumed he want to make a DVD with integrated SP2.

VLite is the tool that can make a DVD from Vista folder extracted from original iso integrated SP2 on it.

But OP already have Vista SP2 on USB stick so there is absolutely no need to create another iso again, OP will only need just VLite to integrated USB 3.0 driver into boot.wim on USB stick and THAT IT!!!

Drop USB 3.0 driver extracted folder on root of USB stick should work both at boot or select load driver at installation setup. USB stick is a "mass storage" device.

Why is there "Load Driver" during Windows installation?

When installing windows, there's a link to "Load Driver" as shown: From what I know, drivers can always be installed after the OS is installed, so it seems odd that there's a "Load Driver" link du...

superuser.com

Vista signed off as RTM on 8 November 2006

Vista SP1 released on 4 February 2008

Vista SP2 released on 28 April 2009

Windows Vista - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

USB 3.0 Promoter Group released USB 3.0 specification on 12 November 2008

USB 3.0 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Third party manufacturers NEC, Asmedia and others was the first to designed USB 3.0 chipsets and sell to motherboard makers. It took until 2012 Intel to ship first Intel chipset Z77 with native USB 3.0 support and AMD A75 chipset with native USB 3.0 support.

 

[AthlonXP1800]

How will adding USB drivers to the Vista OS (install.wim) help with the Windows setup (boot.wim)





If as you say, the DVD ISO has SATA3 drivers but the USB ISO doesn't, then how are they the same?

You are confused.

Both DVD iso and USB iso used same iso from source, both DVD and USB used same SATA2 and SATA3 drivers on boot.wim.

 

[Mujja]

You are confused.

Both DVD iso and USB iso used same iso from source, both DVD and USB used same SATA2 and SATA3 drivers on boot.wim.

The OP says otherwise. Please stop posting nonsense and confusing the OP.

 

[AthlonXP1800]

The OP says otherwise. Please stop posting nonsense and confusing the OP.

No OP didnt said otherwise.

But the ISO is the very same ISO for both, so wouldnt the boot.wim be the same?

I have no idea why you posted nonsense about boot.wim on ISO downloaded from Microsoft and MediaCreationTool have different sizes on both DVD and USB you should not posted it in first place. That is enough, please stop posting any more nonsense about it.

I didnt posted nonsense, I tried my best to help OP to solve the issue.

Anyway in last 3 days I decided to tested put Vista on USB and booted on my desktop USB 3.0 port (all ports on my desktop PC, laptop, Mini PC stick and tablet are all USB 3.0/3.1) to see if it detected hard disk but it didnt detected hard disk, I clicked load driver pointed to X:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\ clicked all USB drivers but none worked. When I tried to load other hard disk controller driver and it will caused BSOD everytime so best not to mess disk controller driver and should just leave it alone. I also tested Windows 7 and 8 on USB stick both cant detected hard disk but Windows 8.1, 10 and 11 can detected hard disk from USB stick. I tried integrated USB drivers to boot.wim but it still cant detected hard disk. Tried swapped Vista install.wim to Windows 11 iso replaced 11 install.wim but it didnt worked because it cant get passed missing Microsoft software license terms. Tried swapped Windows 8.1 boot.wim to Windows 8 didnt worked then I got brilliant idea about used DISM GUI to mounted Windows 8.1 boot.wim and copied 3 folders Windows\Inf, Windows\System32\drivers and Windows\System32\driverstore to replaced 3 folders on Windows 8 and booted but it didnt booted as it complained msrpc.exe missing but the file is already existed in driverstore.

So I was finally gave up and resigned and accepted defeated there was no solution to USB 3.0 problem but on Thursday I decided to watched Youtube videos one more time to find out if there is solution and I finally found the solution!!!

Utility | Service / Support - GIGABYTE Global

www.gigabyte.com

Interesting, I never heard of Gigabyte created Windows 7 USB Installation Tool so I downloaded tool that supported my Z370 motherboard and ran it to integrated correct USB drivers to Windows 7 image on all indexes then I booted it and wow it can detected hard disk! The tool didnt worked with Vista and Windows 8 as it only worked with Windows 7 images so I used DISM GUI to integrated correct USB drivers from tool into Vista and Windows 8 all indexes then booted both finally can detected hard disk. The correct drivers was not previously existed in Vista, 7 and 8 original image Windows\System32\driverstore. I was confused about indexes days ago and now it made sense and now understand what indexes is after realised I integrated drivers into boot.wim index: 1 but not index:2. I found out boot.wim index:1 is Windows PE, index: 2 is Windows Setup. Gigabyte Windows 7 USB Installation Tool integrated USB drivers into ALL indexes of boot.wim index:1, 2 AND install.wim index:1,2,3,4. I now realised what I did wrong days ago and the Gigabyte tool showed how to do it the correct way.

OP can finally download Gigabyte Windows 7 USB Installation Tool for AMD chipsets and integrated drivers to Vista image that will detect hard disk and allow to install from USB stick.

I found ASUS have similar tool called ASUS EZ Installer.

Download ASUS EZ Installer - MajorGeeks

ASUS EZ Installer can create a Windows 7-10 installation file with USB 3.0 drivers preloaded for your ASUS PC. It will create a bootable USB Drive for you that includes Windows 7 and integrates the necessary SATA/USB 3.1 drivers and from then on you will be able to install Windows 7 on computers...

www.majorgeeks.com

Enjoy!!!