How to install Windows 7 from a USB 3.0 Thumb Drive (FAST installation!)

As most of you know, Windows 7 does not have built in USB 3.0 drivers, so normally you can’t install Windows 7 from a USB drive if it is connected to a USB 3.0 port, and your fast USB 3.0 thumb drive has to install at slow 2.0 speeds. However I have figured out how to solve that problem.

Create a directory anywhere named “winpe” and inside of this directory create a directory named usb3 and another directory named mount.

Download the USB 3.0 driver. You can obtain it here:

EDIT: I can’t post links yet, sorry. Just go to the gigabyte website and look for the USB 3.0 driver for any of their motherboards. I would post the links to VIA, TI, etc but alas I cannot post links

Although that driver is provided by Gigabyte for their motherboards, it should work on pretty much any motherboard or USB card based on Renesas/NEC. It works fine on my MSI p67a-g45. The reason I picked the Gigabyte driver is because it is the only one I can find that doesn’t stick the drivers inside of an installshield package.

Rename the file to have a .7z extension and open it with your favorite archiver. 7-zip, WinRAR, and WinZIP all work.

Inside the zip, you’ll want to navigate to usb3\Files\x86 for 32-bit, or usb3\Files\x64 for 64-bit. If you are using an All-in-One setup that includes 32-bit, just use the 32-bit driver. Take all 6 files from your chosen directory and extract them to the winpe\usb3 folder you created earlier.

Next you’ll want to grab the sources\boot.wim file from your Windows 7 ISO image or flash drive and put it in your winpe folder.

Open an administrative console, navigate to your winpe folder, and execute these commands:

Code:

   dism /mount-wim /wimfile:boot.wim /index:2 /mountdir:mount

   dism /image:mount /add-driver /driver:usb3\nusb3hub.inf

   dism /image:mount /add-driver /driver:usb3\nusb3xhc.inf

   dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:mount /commit

Now just copy the boot.wim file from your winpe directory over to your sources folder on your flash drive, and you’re ready to go! Connect to your USB 3.0 port and boot it up. My install time is down to about 5 minutes with my Patriot Supersonic USB drive and my OCZ Vertex 3 SSD.