The other day I was trying to install Windows Server 2012 to a test server, but the installation kept failing on a Load driver screen:
“A media driver your computer needs is missing. This could be a DVD, USB or Hard disk driver. If you have a CD, DVD, or USB flash drive with the driver on it, please insert it now. Note: If the installation media for Windows is in the DVD drive or on a USB drive, you can safely remove it for this step.”
Turns out the reason has nothing to do with my hardware configuration but rather some glitch with the DVD+R media to which I had burned the Server 2012 installation media. So rather than waste time burning additional DVDs I decided to make a bootable USB 3.0 stick instead.
Here are the steps I followed:
- Mount the Windows Server 2012 (or Windows 8) .iso file on some other computer. (I happen to use Virtual Clone Drive to mount the ISO as a drive letter).
- Format the USB 3.0 Stick (has to be 4GB or bigger – mine was 32GB) using the NTFS file system, quick format. (I just did it from Disk Management, but you could also do it from explorer, command prompt, etc.)
- Opened an Administrator Command Prompt (i.e. Start –> CMD –> Right-Click, Run as Administrator).
- Prep the Disk with DiskPart:
- Type; DiskPart
- Type: List Vol to get a list of the volumes (you need the list
- Type: Select Vol VolumeNumberFromTheListVol (i.e. Select Vol 6)
- Type: Active to set the volume active
- Type: Exit to leave the utility
5. In the command window, change to the mounted ISO disk volume, then CD into the Boot folder
6. Type BootSect /NT60 DriveLetterOfTheUSBStick (i.e. BootSect /NT60 T:)
7. Copy the entire ISO contents to the root of the USB stick. (Do not copy the .iso file itself, go to the drive letter assigned to the .iso and use it.)
On the destination computer where you want to install Windows Server 2012 or Windows 8, boot into the BIOS (usually by pressing F2 repeatedly while the computer’ is displaying the initial POST screen), then go to the boot preferences and make sure your USB drive is enabled and in the list before other devices like the HDD.
When all the files are done copying to the device, remove it from the source computer, insert into a USB 3.0 port on the destination computer and reboot.
For me, this worked beautifully. The OS loaded faster than I’ve ever seen before, and the “Load driver” screen never appeared because apparently all the files were in tact on the USB stick.
Darren Myher's Blog 
for step number 5, how do I change directory into the boot file? what are the specific commands I type?
just type “cd” it refers to CD=change directory
I don’t understand step 7
” 7. Copy the entire ISO contents to the root of the USB stick. (Do not copy the .iso
file itself, go to the drive letter assigned to the .iso and use it.) “
This means mount the .iso as a drive using an app such as Slysoft Virtual Clonedrive. http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html. Then copy its contents.
Do you mean copying the content using explorer?
Assume T: is the USB drive and G: is the DVD with the Windows installation media DVD. You would do this in a Command Prompt window:
c:\>g:
g:\>xcopy /s *.* t:\
This will copy the entire contents of the DVD (including subdirectories – the /S) to the USB drive.
You probably can do this using Explorer but I always worry about Explorer trying to be too smart in these kinds of cases and skipping hidden/system files. XCOPY won’t.
Mr Darren Myher can I just use the WinRar to extract the ISO content?
Recently I tried to install Windows 8 after extracting the ISO using WinRar then use the WintoFlash software so It can be booted using flash drive. (I used microSD)
however I got the
“A media driver your computer needs is missing. This could be a DVD, USB or Hard
disk driver. If you have a CD, DVD, or USB flash drive with the driver on it, please
insert it now. Note: If the installation media for Windows is in the DVD drive or on
a USB drive, you can safely remove it for this step.” error
I’ve notice that on some computers the BIOS of the computer isn’t able to boot to the USB 3.0 stick when plugged into a USB 3.0 port on the computer, but the exact same stick will work on the same computer on a USB 2.0 port. That happened for me on a Dell M6500 computer that had a USB 3.0 port added as an upgrade for example.
So I replaced the dvd on my laptop with a disk drive, leaving me with no way to run a dvd install of 2012 server.
Wanted a USB stick to install it from, tried Unetbootin, but that didn’t work. So I brought up Virtualbox (I only had Linux machines at that moment) and proceeded to load Win 7 so I could use Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool.
Your post got my attention because I got the same error you had above – turned out I had inadvertently attached the “guest additions” to the CDRom drive in VirtualBox. Cleared that, finished the install (I was putting some clients on it anyway) and used the USB to install the server on the other machine.
Just another way to accomplish that, though it is nice to have the commands above.
Thanks, solved my problem!
RESPECT!
Thanks a lot!
Worked like a charm.
No need to format USB disk/stick…
All magic is probably in “BootSect /NT60 T:”