Booting from USB ' No OS found'

u097mford

Commendable
Mar 15, 2016
4
0
1,510
So my laptop HD died and I bought a brand new one, put it in and then tried booting from the DVD drive with a reinstall disk containing XP as well as the different versions of Win7, but I would just get insert bootable media errors. So I copied the disk contents to an external USB drive, set the laptop to boot from the USB and now I get 'Missing Operating System'.

I know there's a setup.exe on the disk, which I'm assuming is what allows you to select the OS type, but I'm not seeing what I need to do to get to that point. I don't see any way to boot to cmd prompt without the OS first or otherwise access the USB drive data.

Any suggestions?
 
Solution
Sounds like you need your SATA/RAID drivers for you motherboard - download them & put them on the USB (you CAN "drag & drop" them). When you're prompted, hit "browse" and point it towards the drivers and that should fix the problem.

Also, try to avoid using USB 3.0 if you can - 2.0 seems to much more reliable for installing the OS for some reason.

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
To create a bootable USB, you need to crease an ISO image of the disk (not just copy the files).
You can then create a bootable USB from the ISO image.

You'll need another computer, with a disk drive to create an ISO image from the disk/create a USB from the image.

There are a variety of utilities/freeware available to accomplish both tasks.

I've had success with MagicISO to create an ISO image of a disk: http://www.magiciso.com/download.htm

Then Rufus to create the bootable USB from the ISO image: https://rufus.akeo.ie/
 

u097mford

Commendable
Mar 15, 2016
4
0
1,510
I think I may have found the problem and if so, it is an id10t error. I had two disks, one a bootable reinstall disk and the other was a repair\driver pack disk. Apparently I copied the driver pack disk to the USB instead of the install one. I'll poke around the install disk to see if the .iso's are already there. I'm guessing they are since it is a bootable reinstall disk. I actually have two of them from two different trusted sources and their contents appear identical so I'll keep my fingers crossed. Thanks!
 

u097mford

Commendable
Mar 15, 2016
4
0
1,510
Ok so I created an ISO of the install disk, then copied the iso over to the USB, but still getting Missing Operating System. I have a HD reader - are there some basic files I could copy onto the HD that would allow me to boot to CMD prompt in order to run the CD\USB files manually?
 

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
What do you mean "copied it over"? Literally "drag & drop"? Thats not what I explained at all.

Once you've created the ISO image of the disk (which you've done), run Rufus - I linked it previously.

Once installed/running, it's pretty self explanatory.
1. Select your USB device from the dropdown
2. Select the partition scheme (GPT should be the default and work fine)
3. Select whether you require NTFS or FAT32
4. Leave cluster size at default
5. Name the volume
6. "check device for bad blocks" if you wish - not really necessary
7. Select quick format
8. Select "create a bootable disk using" and select "ISO Image" from the dropdown. Click the little disk box to the right and locate the ISO file you've already created.
9. Select "create extended label and icon files"
10. Hit "start"

Once it's done, eject it safely and insert it into the computer you want to boot from USB - ensure BIOS is selected to boot priority #1 for USB (or override if you have the functionality) and you should be good to go.

 

u097mford

Commendable
Mar 15, 2016
4
0
1,510
Noticed I skipped the Rufus part so I went back and did that and now when I boot from the USB drive I go right into Win7 setup (woot!). The problem now is that during Part 1 (Collecting Information), it pops up an Install Windows screen asking me to select the location of device drivers. Doesn't tell me exactly what it is looking for, but whatever it is, it isn't on the USB drive I guess.
 

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
Sounds like you need your SATA/RAID drivers for you motherboard - download them & put them on the USB (you CAN "drag & drop" them). When you're prompted, hit "browse" and point it towards the drivers and that should fix the problem.

Also, try to avoid using USB 3.0 if you can - 2.0 seems to much more reliable for installing the OS for some reason.
 
Solution