Installing Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit mentions a missing CD/DVD driver?

If you are installing Windows from USB and you are using USB3 port on your brand new laptop. You are upsetting Great Mystical Windows Spirit. Insert your USB key to USB2 port and "Missing Required CD/DVD Driver" error will go way. The clue that you are having this problem: when you click browse button and try to expand USB drive you get error that USB drive is not inserted which is strange as you just booted from this USB.

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When installing: Missing Cd/DVD device driver ("A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing)

SeajayF post

My Dell has USB 3 ports with a Texas Instruments controller. These are not included in the Microsoft Windows preinstall environment and as a result I have the error. So what the error was trying to say is "I cannot access the CD you are trying to install from", when what it is actually referring to is the USB flash drive.

Luckily there was a USB 2 port on the laptop also. When I boot from this port all goes swimmingly. If you don't have a USB 2 port and have a similar problem then you are going to have to customize your Windows PE to include the drivers or alternatively add your USB 3 driver via some other external media device e.g. USB floppy.

In my case, it turned out I was booting from a “repair” disc and not a “recovery” disc (had not performed a format & re-install since Vista, so I was unaware of the difference).

After several days of fighting the problem, it turned out that the laptop manufacturer (Sony) includes a special boot option (in my case it was activated by pressing F10 during startup) which provides the ability to roll-back the machine to a fresh install of Windows 7, as it was shipped from the manufacturer.

If experiencing the Required CD/DVD Drive Device Driver is Missing error message, you may want to search for restore options provided by your manufacturer. This might be common knowledge for those who have worked with a lot of Windows 7 machines, but I wasted a lot time because I was used to the old format & re-install model.