Inspiron 15 5100 - I am having trouble instaling Win 7 on my new machine because of missing drivers.

It has nothing to do with Ubuntu being on there. Try putting the drivers on the SAME USB you are installing with, but 99% of the time the missing CD driver message is because of bad installation media. If you downloaded the Windows 7 ISO, I would start by download it again.

Try removing all unnecessary USB devices.

Which program did you use to create your USB boot drive?

Likely the Windows 7 .iso you downloaded is incomplete.

Thanks for your reply.... I used Rufus to create the bootable USB.... and I had only the one necessary USB device connected to a USB 2.0 drive.

I have temporarily gotten around this problem by installing Win 10 but I wanted Win 7 so I will keep looking for solutions. I seems like the required drivers are included with Win 10 but not Win 7 installation as laptop is brand new only shipped and received last week.

Thank you for your reply.... I dont think so because I was able to install from the very same USB stick to another older Toshiba laptop. Im thinking that my new Dell Inspiron 15 5100 hardware is newer than the drivers that are included with the Win 7 setup media which I am using... as I said I have only temporarily gotten around this issue by installing a Win 10 release but I still want to get Win 7 onto my machine... however I am still getting same error when I try to install :(

Regards

What is the exact model of your system? The "5100" shipped in 2003. Might be part of the 5100 family, like the N5110, etc.

Well Dell Inspiron 15 5100 is all that is written on the underside with this as the Service Tag: DC3D582 which brings up Inspiron 3552 when I go to Dell.com to download drivers.

It is brand new and surely a new model seeing as there is no CD/DVD drive on it. 64bit with 4gb RAM 500gb HGard drive so it isnt an old model from 2003. I just bought it last week directly from Dell online sales.

IT shipped with Ubuntu and as I said I am trying to put Win 7 on it but have had to resort to Win 10 which is not a major problem but I dont understand fully why I cant get Win 7 instaslled from a USB because it is asking from CD/DVD device drivers at the start of the installation process.

I get to select the language and keyboard type at the start of Windows 7 setup then says "Setup is Starting" then I get the error message looking for device drivers.

I have seen this issue mentioned on dellwindowsreinstallationguide website but this says that it is due to an incomplete .iso but that is definitely not the case as I have proven this by installing from the exact same USB stick to another older Toshiba machine successfully.

Thank you for replying... I welcome any further ideas as I still would like to use Win 7 for a while longer.

Put your Service Tag into support.dell.com and you get an Inspiron 3552.

You cant get windows 7 installed because windows 7 does not understand your chipset and needs F6 Drivers aka INTEL RST drivers installed.  Windows 7 Drivers are NOT OFFERED for your system.

Sorry for the delay getting back to you and thank you for your reply... That makes sense. As I said I did get Win 10 to work so I will carry on with that... I will forget about the possibility of installing Win 7.

Thanks to all who have helped me with this issue.

Hi altXon

So are we saying that its impossible to install Windows 7 64 on the Inspiron 15 5100 (Ubuntu edition.

I managed to get it installed by using SYSPREP. It loaded OK but cant install many drivers successfully so USB, WiFi, Bluetooth isn't working (that I know of) as the drivers seem to be latched to Dell version of Windows 7.

This has created very big problems for me as I need to install Windows 7 specifically as its for an old person who knows Windows 7.

This model was sold with Windows 7 so it should accept Windows 7 (and not just Dell version). I bought it because DELL have the Win7 drivers to download little did I know they are jinxed to only work with Dell OS.

Does anyone know if Windows 8.1 will work ? Maybe we can get away with that (hopefully).

Latched to Dell's version of Windows 7 ????

There are drivers for Windows 7 64-bit if indeed you have the Inspiron 3552.

Hi ieee488

Goto - www.dell.com/.../drivers;l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

then click on CHANGE OS (in blue) just under Service Tag box and you get "View all available updates for Windows 7, 64-bit."

So there are Windows 7 Drivers but they only work with DELL's own Windows 7 image.

iee-488

Check out the following 15 3552 Drivers page and change OS

see - www.dell.com/.../drivers

see point 8 - www.dell.com/.../EN