4 replies to this topic

[netsurfer802]

I've been having a Hell of a time getting Windows on a Sony VIO desktop. I've tried six different optical drives and on all of them...they keep saying No Emulation...after that they continue. The farthest I've gotten with loading Win XP is after all the files are copied over for the install. But right after it restarts and acts like it's installing Win XP, It gives a pop up box error message saying that a divice necessary could not be contacted/located for setup...(not verbatim but that's basically what it said). When I tried loading Win 7 32-bit it said that it couldn't locate the driver for the optical drive and wouldn't let me continue. How would one work around this problem???

Thanks in advanced for anybody that has an answer to this perdicament.

[xendrome]

Need details on your desktop model number and are you using USB optical drives or internal?

[Detection]

If you have a 4GB+ flash drive + Windows 7 ISO, and your desktop can boot from USB, use this tool to install 7 from USB

http://www.microsoft..._usbdvd_dwnTool

[lars77]

netsurfer802, on 04 September 2012 - 00:11, said:

When I tried loading Win 7 32-bit it said that it couldn't locate the driver for the optical drive and wouldn't let me continue. How would one work around this problem???

Usually that just means you have a bad Windows disc. Most likely a bad burn? Not sure if you're using cheapo DVD-Rs or maybe you're burning the disc way too fast.

Sometimes that means the Windows installer really isn't compatible with that optical drive, but that's very rare.

Either re-burn your disc at a slower rate (around 4-8x is usually a safe bet?), or try using better blank discs. Or go the USB drive route like Detection mentioned.

[PGHammer]

lars77, on 04 September 2012 - 02:47, said:

Usually that just means you have a bad Windows disc. Most likely a bad burn? Not sure if you're using cheapo DVD-Rs or maybe you're burning the disc way too fast.

Sometimes that means the Windows installer really isn't compatible with that optical drive, but that's very rare.

Either re-burn your disc at a slower rate (around 4-8x is usually a safe bet?), or try using better blank discs. Or go the USB drive route like Detection mentioned.

Bad burns are a major issue, especially the more and more you reuse a medium - the more it's reused, the more likely (not less likely) a bad burn will happen. The further you go north of one hundred reuses (DVD+RW media) the more likely a bad burn will happen. With DVD+RW media the same price as +R media, you may as well, in most cases, treat it as +R media (note that I'm saying that +RW media is that cheap) - if you have multiple computers that support USB booting (and practically any computer in the last three years *should* - even the Dells and HPs out there), buy multiple thumb drives.

USB thumb drives (where usable) are also significantly faster than optical drives on installs - even to hard drives, let alone SSDs. Just changing my Windows 8 Pro install method to thumb-drive-based, as opposed to optical-drive based, sliced installation time by more than half; as I stated before, this is a clean install to a hard drive.