Question Need USB 2.0 PCI-e card with native support in Win7

[stason99]

Hi all. Need your help here.

Do you know a particular brand/model of PCI-e USB 2.0 card that does not require manual driver installation under Win 7 but will work with whatever drivers Win 7 will supply? I'm asking about USB 2.0 because I've heard that Win for should have native support for USB 2.0 but not 3.0.

I don't want to waste your time explaining exactly why I need it (if you insist then I'll do it), but basically for transferring Win 7 to a new z390 based motherboard.

 

[USAFRet]

"transferring Win 7 to a new z390 based motherboard "

Why does this need the type of card you specify?

Long train of details needed.

Starting hardware
Ending hardware
What you hope to do in the middle

 

[stason99]

Alright...... You've asked for it )

I have a multiboot i7 3770k machine , all OSs are Win 7. One for DAW (digital audio workstation), second for video production in Premiere Pro, last one is for testing and backups.

The DAW Win7 has thousands of VST plugins and 6Tb of sound sample libraries. Last time it took me 4 complete days, 8-10 hr her day to install everything in this system. It's real, unbearable pain.

I want to upgrade to an i9 3990k by transferring existing Win7s to new hardware using this utility (Paragon Adaptive Restore 2010) which many people swear to be working well :
https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html

Plus, absolutely hate Win 10.

But new z390 motherboards don't have USB drivers for Win 7. It's a known issue.

There are some custom made USB drivers that may or may not work. But even to install them, you need a PS/2 mouse since USB obviously won't work. The z390 motherboard I want to buy doesn't have PS/2 (Gigabyte Aorus z390). So I won't even be able to use a mouse to install custom USB drivers. If custom USB drivers won't work then I could run all USB devices on this machine from multiple pci-e USB cards but in order to install these USB card drivers I need a mouse. That why I'm asking for a card that will not require any manual driver installation, just to enable me to run a mouse for installation of USB drivers.

 

[USAFRet]

Making a Win 7 install work on different hardware is one thing.
Making a Win 7 install work on a new Z390 board is quite another.

 

[stason99]

Well, I want to try and report back. Do you know such a card that doesn't require drivers installation or do they all work this way (I doubt)?

 

[stason99]

Anyone else, please?

 

[BFG-9000]

You aren't going to find a USB 2.0 card that is bootable. Unlike a SCSI or SATA card it would need more than just an option ROM--USB would actually need BIOS support as without DMA the CPU has to handle all data transfers through it, and before any drivers load too.

If you are trying to install Windows 7 from DVD though, and just want the USB card to support a keyboard and mouse, then I suggest looking up the commandline switches for an unattended installation. You'd need to use the USB 3.0 ports while the BIOS legacy keyboard emulation is still working, and hope the install would get far enough along by itself so the drivers for the card get installed before you need to use keyboard and mouse in Windows.

The correct procedure is to slipstream the USB 3.0 drivers themselves into the Windows 7 installation media. At least then you'd know right away if the custom drivers even work. That Paragon seems to let you pre-install HDD controller drivers, can't it install the USB drivers before transferring the system?

 

[stason99]

The correct procedure is to slipstream the USB 3.0 drivers themselves into the Windows 7 installation media. At least then you'd know right away if the custom drivers even work. That Paragon seems to let you pre-install HDD controller drivers, can't it install the USB drivers before transferring the system?

The problem would have been solved if I could do a new installation from DVD. But like I said, I can't install all from scratch.

If you are trying to install Windows 7 from DVD though, and just want the USB card to support a keyboard and mouse, then I suggest looking up the commandline switches for an unattended installation. You'd need to use the USB 3.0 ports while the BIOS legacy keyboard emulation is still working, and hope the install would get far enough along by itself so the drivers for the card get installed before you need to use keyboard and mouse in Windows.

I haven't tried to use Paragon yet. Does it require actually installing the drivers or placing them into a place where Windows can pick them up from once on new hardware? This wold be ideal. I've tried to pre install the custom USB drivers into my existing system and got BSOD and Win7 didn't load except in "last known configuration".

 

[stason99]

According to this post , Paragon Adaptive Restore offers an option to pre-load drivers that will be needed for new motherboard. Can I preload custom USB drivers this way? Should this work?