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107495
Installing Windows 7 on new Latitude E7470
Hello all,
I'm struggling with this one. I have a brand new Latitude E7470. I installed our internal Windows 7 image (we use Acronis Snap Deploy) and it installed fine over the network, but the installed W7 won't recognize any of the USB hubs or ports (the keyboard and mouse still work), and doesn't know the new Intel I219-LM or new Intel 8260 wifi NIC. Since there is no internal CD, I have no way to get drivers to the system to start communications!!! Our image works on most newer Dell systems, but this E7470 is apparently all too new. How can I make this thing see even a USB flash drive or SD card? All I need to do is get a NIC driver to it, then I can take care of the rest.
The other thing I tried is to install W7 from scratch. I have a Dell branded W7 SP1 64-bit installer on USB drive. I can't install Windows 7 from this USB key because it isn't aware of the drivers needed for the M.2 SSD. I'm assuming that even if I did get W7 to install from this disc, I'd still be out of luck with USB or NIC drivers on it...
So, what do I do now? We are still a W7 shop so I need to figure out a new way to get W7 on this machine.
The way I see it I have two options. I could take an older computer, load our image on it, drop the new NIC driver installers on it or teach them with pnp, and create a new image from that to push to this laptop, install the new NIC drivers and re-create our image. Or I could build an entirely new system off the OEM dell build that came with the E7470 and W7 downgrade. Yes I did make a backup of the OE system before I wiped it.
Just wondering if anyone has run across this before and has any ideas how to make a system learn about the USB chipsets when it has seemingly no way to load external files. Once I figure this out I can make it our new image so it will be backward-chipset aware, but it's getting the new chipsets recognized that I'm having a problem with.
Thanks in advance for any ideas!
drivesmeupawall
62 Posts
2
March 11th, 2016 10:00
Well, I figured this one out. No go with USB, but I was able to connect an external SATA cd-rom drive to a docking station that the computer recognized! Then on another machine I burned the NIC installer to CD and this one is back in business.
I was surprised there was no 'legacy USB' mode in the BIOS like I've seen in other USB 3 laptops.
If you have Latitude docking stations, maybe you will be lucky enough to find an external SATA drive. Mine has Dell part number "K01B". As far as I can tell this is out of production, but they can still be found on ebay and amazon. Anyhow, this worked for me. Good luck!
Dell, please consider adding a legacy USB mode to the BIOS on this system. Thank you!
db-it
2 Posts
0
April 27th, 2016 21:00
Hello Drivesmeupthewall
I am in the same boat. I got the esata dvd drive which shows through uefi boot.
What NIC installer did you burn to CD for the 7470?
drivesmeupawall
62 Posts
0
May 2nd, 2016 09:00
Hi db-it - I prefer to get the NIC driver from Intel, if your system came with the Intel NIC. The driver at the link below also encompasses a lot of older Intel NICs, so it's good to have on a system image. Now that I have updated my image with the newer NIC I don't have a problem anymore - it was just the first time! Hope this is helpful.https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/71307/Intel-Ethernet-Connection-I218-LM
PS - if the link doesn't work, just google "Intel 219LM driver" and the first intel page that comes up should lead you to the right place. The other option, of course, is to download the driver from the Dell drivers and downloads page based on your computer's service tag number. That's sure to get you the right things.