Installing Windows 7 on Skylake notebook. Drive not visible in the installation

[mtosev]

So I want to install Win 7 on my Inspiron 7359 notebook and in the installation the SSD drive is not visible. In the bios I switched to legacy boot and turned Intel PPT off. The installation starts with no issue but the list where the drives should be is empty. What I'm a doing wrong?

[Moonchild]

You may need a specific chipset driver that's not included on the Windows 7 install medium?

[mtosev]

You may need a specific chipset driver that's not included on the Windows 7 install medium?

How do I find out which one is missing?
Thx

[Pentium4User]

You may need a specific chipset driver that's not included on the Windows 7 install medium?

How do I find out which one is missing?

Boot up a Linux live distro and run

Code: Select all

lspci

The check the manufacturer´s website for the driver.
Be aware: Windows 7 is EoL and insecure, don't use it connected to the internet.

[Night Wing]

If it turns out to be a specific driver for Windows 7 and it works, I suggest you copy the "DriverStore" and store the file on a thumb drive. This way, if you ever have to re-install ALL of the Windows 7 drivers for your Inspiron 7359 notebook again, all of the drivers (wifi, graphics, sound, etc) will be on the thumb drive.

As an example. Some people would come into the shop where I volunteer at and their Windows 7 hard drives got corrupted with bad sectors. So they needed to buy a new hard drive.

If I could get to their Windows 7 driver store, I copied all of those drivers onto a thumb drive so I didn't have to go all over the internet searching for those drivers. Then I would install Windows 7 and install all of the missing drivers.

[mrnhmath]

Try using the Simplix UpdatePack7R2, it integrates USB 3 and NVMe support into the Windows 7 .iso along with all updates.

[mtosev]

Try using the Simplix UpdatePack7R2, it integrates USB 3 and NVMe support into the Windows 7 .iso along with all updates.

I will try this but the drive isn't an NVMe but a standard sata drive

[mtosev]

sata drivers and I loaded them at the start of the win 7 installation but still I get an error. A different error. What I'm a doing wrong?

[Moonchild]

You're going to have to provide a translation of that error for us in English.

[mtosev]

Here's in English

[mtosev]

I resolved the issue. I started the windows 7 installation directly from win 10. Now I have another issue. Windows 7 won't activate. Did Ms pull the plug for activating win 7?

[Night Wing]

@ mtosev

Since you don't have (if my memory serves me correctly) the 25 digit product key, there is a program to activate your copy of Windows 7. But the program is illegal and it is illegal because it works. I know the name of the program and where I found it on the internet. The download file is about 2.7 MB in size.

And to make matters worse, I still have this illegal program on all of my thumb drives.

When I had to re-install my Windows 7 operating system for a third time, I had to do so because Microsoft sent one of their "crappy" updates that borked my Windows 7 operating system. Two times before, when I had to install new hard drives, the legal 25 digit product key on the sticker on the outside case of my desktop computer worked. The third time it "didn't" work.

I think Microsoft killed off the server which activated legal copies of Windows 7 which ticked me off to no end. Or maybe the server wasn't working that fateful day when I needed it to work.

So I went looking for a program to activate my desktop computer running Windows 7. Found it, used it and it worked. And what Microsoft did to me, I returned the favor to Microsoft by using the illegal program activate my copy of Windows 7. For me, it was a case of; "turn around is fair play" if you get my drift.