[Galacticus]

The past two days I've been slapping together my first HTPC and I'm running into things I've never had to deal with before.

To begin, my setup is an MSI E350IS-E45 (AMD Zecate), brand new RealSSD C300 64GB, Mini-Box E350 w/ 80W picoPSU, and 2GB of GSkill DDR3 that I've been using in my desktop for the last 6 months. That's my entire system.

Since I've got no optical drive (this is the thing I've never had to deal with before) I tried using RT7Lite to load Windows 7 home prem and slipstreamed SP1 onto a brand new 16GB USB thumbdrive. No matter what I attempt to boot off of I get the same message "No Operating System Found" right after the system posts.

I figured the RT7Lite thing was corrupt so I wiped the USB drive an copy/pasted my Win7 install files directly from the disc into my USB drive and get the exact same result of "No Operating System Found". Well duh...I'm trying to install it!!!

What am I doing wrong?

[tboooe]

The past two days I've been slapping together my first HTPC and I'm running into things I've never had to deal with before.

To begin, my setup is an MSI E350IS-E45 (AMD Zecate), brand new RealSSD C300 64GB, Mini-Box E350 w/ 80W picoPSU, and 2GB of GSkill DDR3 that I've been using in my desktop for the last 6 months. That's my entire system.

Since I've got no optical drive (this is the thing I've never had to deal with before) I tried using RT7Lite to load Windows 7 home prem and slipstreamed SP1 onto a brand new 16GB USB thumbdrive. No matter what I attempt to boot off of I get the same message "No Operating System Found" right after the system posts.

I figured the RT7Lite thing was corrupt so I wiped the USB drive an copy/pasted my Win7 install files directly from the disc into my USB drive and get the exact same result of "No Operating System Found". Well duh...I'm trying to install it!!!

What am I doing wrong?

Did you make your USB drive bootable?

[eskro]

#1- make sure your ISO file is bootable (MagicISO Maker can tell u that)
#2- "BURN" your Bootable ISO File to USB using --> http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

[T800]

I formatted a 4gb flash drive and ran this tool on it. I didn't get it from here but it looks the same:
http://wudt.codeplex.com/

[vinistois]

I had the exact same error trying to boot xbmc live from a USB CD-ROM drive on a Gigabyte E-350 board.

I think there are USB-boot issues with the new zacate boards. Its the only explanation I could come up with, since other computers booted off my live CD with no problems.

[mickc]

i had a similar issue on a zacate

turns out the usb 3.0 ports are not bootable

plugged it into the 2.0 port and it was fine

[Galacticus]

Interesting, I'm not sure I know which one is usb 3 vs. 2, I'll have to re-examine the documentation when i get home.

As for if I made the USB drive bootable...I think there's a good chance I didn't do it correctly. My first attempt I formatted the drive NTFS and used RT7Lite to slipstream Win 7 w/ SP1, I just hit the USB button on the last page and it loaded all of the files on the drive.

I'm pretty certain it's PEBKAC, I just don't know which part I screwed up!

[eskro]

Try this

#1- make sure your ISO file is bootable (MagicISO Maker can tell u that)

#2- format USB stick to FAT32

#3- "BURN" your Bootable ISO File to USB using --> http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

[misterpink]

There is an official Microsoft tool for creating bootable usb stick installers:

http://images2.store.microsoft.com/prod/...D-tool.exe

Also make sure you test the usb key on another system (or systems) first to make sure you are working with a known quantity before you start trying to figure out the second half of your problem (zacate usb boot problems)

Good Luck!

[nemek]

From what i know some motherboards have problems with booting from *some* usb thumbdrives - you may try fat16 instead fat32 or create smaller fat32 partition (using gparted for example)

[eskro]

i installed win7 using my USB Stick and it went flawless...
it was my very first time too!
just try as i said in post #8

[Galacticus]

Thanks for your help everyone, but I cheated.

I put my htpc 6 inches from my desktop and used it's optical drive