[SOLVED] Installing Windows 7 Problem - "Select the driver to be installed"

You are installing linux on the same laptop? Everything I've read says you must install Windows first.

Also it's a Dell so does it have a hidden partition for restore - another user had trouble with his install until he made that partition visible. And it cannot handle more than 4 partitions in total on a HD.

Also is the drive formatted NTFS? And are you letting windows use it's boot manager, as others can give it fits.

I only installed linux to see if I could successfully install something on the laptop. My ultimate goal is to get windows 7 on this thing. Between each install attempt I am running gparted and reformatting the drive. So when I tried Fedora I ran gparted and formatted it to ext4, then for windows I reformatted it back to ntfs.

I wanted to update this thread in case someone else has a similar problem. I finally was able to get a dvd burned of dell windows home premium (I am in rural Thailand, took awhile!). And alas the DVD worked, while only Fedora was able to be installed from USB (I tried every windows install xp to windows 7 ultimate 32/64 bit, and Ubuntu also).

I believe the problem is that the Dell L501X has two 3.0 USB drives and no 2.0 drives, and they do not play nice without the Dell Reneas drivers. Even after I installed windows 7 from the DVD they would not work until the dell driver was installed.

Thanks for the time spent trying to help me! Peace!

Thank you for letting us know what worked, and marking the thread solved!

I can confirm, having the exact same error, that my issue was also USB3.0 port.

I moved the usb stick over to a USB 2.0 port and it worked without even restarting the laptop.

FIXED! - Ok, so I have read in multiple places that this issue (installing Windows 7 via a USB/THUMB DRIVE) is due to missing drivers or possibly an incompatible usb port of 2.0 or 3.0. I tried selecting browser and clicking on the thumb drive that has all the appropriate drivers multiple times with the thumb drive in each of the 4 ports on this laptop (note: i dont know if they are 2.0 or 3.0). I clicked the "X" in the top right hand corner of the box to X out the window with the thumb drive in the last possible usb port on the laptop, i then clicked the install button to continue like normal and it didn't show the "Select the driver to be installed" window and continued as it should.

IN SHORT:

Try another usb port, close the window "Select the driver to be installed" and click the install button again - repeat until you've tried all usb ports, if this doesn't work, i'm sorry and good luck!