A Required CD/DVD Drive Device Driver is Missing’ Error Message When booting/Installing Windows 7 from a USB
Installing Windows 7 with a Flash USB drive is by far the easiest and fastest way of installing Windows OS. But in the same time, a common issue “A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing” would occur during the installation, which makes you feel more confused because you even don’t have a disk drive.
What causes the “A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing” error message?
The problem caused because the USB drive is not recognized by Windows PE (Windows Preinstallation Environment ). Windows PE is built on Windows 7 kernel and is used to prepare a computer for Windows installation. So if the USB drive is not recognized by Windows PE, you may encounter this problem and cannot install the system. Try solutions below to fix the problem.
Solution 1: Unplug the USB drive and plug it back in
Just unplug the USB drive and plug it back in the computer, then the problem should resolve. You may not believe it, but it is the easiest and most useful solution to fix problem.
Solution 2: Unplug the USB drive and plug it into a different USB port
If unplugging doesn’t work for you, try another switch port. If you are using USB 3.0 port, switch it to USB 2.0 port and try installing the system again.
Solution 3: Change the USB Settings in BIOS
Faulty USB settings in BIOS may also cause the problem. Windows 7 install media doesn’t have native support for USB3.0. So if your BIOS has any settings for USB3.0 support during start up, turn it to AUTO or DISABLE.
Solution 4: Gigabyte’s Windows 7 USB Installation Tool
If the above methods don’t work, use this tool to incorporate the USB3 drivers into your W7 flash drive.
STEP 1
Download the Gigabyte’s Windows 7 USB Installation Tool from this page.If you know your motherboard type, then you can download the corresponding driver, but if you’re unsure, you can try out version: B17.1023.1 which supports AMD series motherboard.
STEP 2
go to the folder where you saved the downloaded Gigabyte’s Windows Installation Tool, right-click and selecting extract all, then choose wherever you want to extract to and wait for the extraction to complete. After the extraction, you should have a folder named “WindowsImage Tool”. Open the folder, you should see WindowsImageTool application.
here you should leave the source path as “None-Add USB Drivers” then in the destination path, select the USB that contains your Windows 7 installation files. Here the “Add USB drivers to an offline Windows 7 image” is selected by default, next select the “Add NVMe drivers option to an offline Windows 7 image” as well, automatically the “Add packages to an offline Windows 7” is also selected. So you should have all three options checked. Then click on start to begin the installation process.
This process will take 20 to 30 minutes.
After running this tool successfully, there will be no noticeable change to your Windows 7 installation files as they appear in your USB folder, however, the required drivers for the installation should have been installed and when you try running the installation again, it should proceed with no more errors.
