Installing Win7 Enterprise on NVMe drive via Acronis
Hi all,
I have been trying to install Windows 7 Enterprise (64 bit) on a new Lenovo T470s (NVMe SSD). I have been able to install WinPE using a bootable Acronis USB, but when I try to inject the necessary drivers using Universal Restore I'm prompted with an error that I'm missing this driver:
ACPI\VEN_ACPI&DEV_000C
I was able to find it on the hardware manufacturers webiste:
https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds029250
I extracted the files from the .exe into a folder, but Universal Restore claims they are still not there.
Any ideas?


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In reply to Matt, welcome to these User… by truwrikodrorow…

Hi Steve,
Thanks for your reply. To clarify, I have done exactly what you described. I have made a Windows 7 Ent image on an older laptop and made a full back up of that drive. I used a Rescue Media usb drive to install the image on a new laptop, and I'm now trying to use Universal Restore media so Windows loads properly.
When using Universal Restore, I'm prompted to include the driver:
"ACPI\VEN_ACPI&DEV_000C"
I have tried downloading the driver (possibly the wrong driver) from Lenovo's website (https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds029250), but after extracting the drivers and pointing to the folder, Universal Restore still can't find them.
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Matt, ACPI should not prevent you from completing the Universal Restore actions, assuming that you can say to ignore the missing driver - this is normally provided by Windows itself.
Did you check that your older laptop and the new Lenovo both boot in the same mode, i.e. both as Legacy or both as UEFI, plus that both use the same disk controller mode, i.e. AHCI or ... These are normally the key issues for doing this type of migration.
If you are still seeing an issue with Universal Restore, then try just pointing it a the Lenovo Chipset drivers and see if that will help matters here? Normally, only the chipset and disk controller drivers are required.
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In reply to Matt, ACPI should not… by truwrikodrorow…

I can ignore the error and the Universal Restore process will complete successfully, but I'm still unable to boot Windows from the internal drive.
I pulled all of the new drivers from the System32 folder and included it in the automatic driver search with no luck.
The new machine uses a standard NVMe storage controller, which I am assuming is the issue.
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Matt, the other suggestion to offer here would be to try a different approach.
Wipe the Lenovo NVMe drive and do a vanilla install of Windows 7 on this computer from the Microsoft install media, ensuring that you are using the same boot mode as the older laptop.
Once you have a working Windows 7 installation, use the free Double Driver utility to capture the non-Microsoft device drivers from that system to use with Universal Restore.
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Steve,
Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately Acronis is my plan B, plan A was installing Windows as you described. However, in order to install Windows 7 Ent on NVMe drives you have to modify the install.wim and boot.wim to include the proper drivers, and none of the methods available online have been working for me.
The new version of Acronis does support NVMe drives, so I thought I would be able to image an older machine and then use the bootable Rescue Media and Universal Restore to force Windows 7 Ent on to the new hardware.
Based on the Acronis documentation in theory this should work, wondering if I am missing a step somewhere...
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I think your issue is that you are missing native driver support for NVMe in Windows 7. I am not sure you will be able to get Universal Restore to inject the drivers needed. The drivers need to be in .sys, .inf, or .oem format. I have not done this but you can certainly give it a try.
Windows 7 does not have support for NVMe natively as does Win 8 -10. Microsoft has issued a Hot Fix but it is aimed at installing Win 7 to an NVMe drive not an image file. The link below will get you to the Microsoft site for more on this.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2990941/update-to-add-native-d…
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In reply to I think your issue is that… by truwrikodrorow…

Hi Enchantech,
That is most definitely the issue I am experiencing. I have already gone down the rabbit hole of attempting to apply this hotfix and additional drivers to the Windows installer ISO (there is a lot of info about doing this online). All of the methods I have tried to modify the .wim files (command prompt DISM commands, 3rd party GUI, etc) have failed, so now I am attempting to use Acronis as a work around.
I am able to install WindowsPE and restore the Windows 7 image without issue, but I still can't boot. Universal Restore completes "successfully" if I ignore the ACPI driver error. I've submitted a ticket through Acronis support so we'll see what they say.
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So what happens when you try to boot the disk with the restored image? Do you get error messages? If yes what are they?
Did you try Method 2 of the link I provided or can you get that far with boot?
Did you follow the steps in Method 1 of the article I linked to create the Windows install ISO disk? If yes where did you get your driver files for the NVMe drive? (they are not included in the HotFix)
Is your NVMe drive a genuine Lenovo part? If not this may be your issue. Lenovo is notorious for writing their BIOS firmware to detect authorized Lenovo hardware in a machine. If that hardware is not found then the BIOS will not recognize the device so it is unusable.
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Matt, do you know if it is possible to install the NVMe drivers on your old laptop (even though it doesn't have the supporting hardware) so that it is present in a new image you could create from that laptop?
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I am attaching a link to Lenovo site that details the process of adding the HotFix and drivers in a Win 7 install file. It has more detailed information about the process so may be of benefit.
I believe your attempting to add drivers as Steve suggests will meet failure because the Hotfix adds the hardware support necessary to get the drivers installed and working.
As for using True Image and Universal Restore to do this is not going to work. Universal Restore cannot perform the HotFix part of the equation here. It could deal with the drivers but you lack hardware support in Win 7 natively which is why the Hotfix is necessary.
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Bob, many thanks for contributing to this topic with your updates.
Matt, this may be an opportunity to consider the benefits of upgrading to Windows 10 on your new Lenovo computer and have the benefit of native NVMe support without the need to jump through lots of hoops with hot fixes, etc.
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Bob and Steve,
Thanks so much for all of your suggestions, I really appreciate the help. If I can't use Acronis to accomplish this, I think it's going to depend on whether or not I can find the specific Toshiba drivers I need so I can point to them during installation.
Or, I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and teach some folks about Windows 10 :)
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I believe that you can use Intel IRST drivers as it really is the controller for the drive which needs the driver. You should be able to get them at the Intel support site.
Having said that I believe that unless you have successfully added in the HotFix to the Windows install files you will have no success. (I trust you have done that)
At the beginning stages of the Windows install you will be asked if you would like to add drivers. Point the installer to the drivers and things should move forward from there.
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Matt,
I located Toshiba NVMe Win 7 drivers for you. They are signed drivers. There are both 32 and 64 bit drivers as well as an OCZ installer set. (OCZ is now owned by Toshiba).
These are rar files renamed with a zip extension, Remove the zip extension and use your favorite utility to extract the rar archives.
Anhang | Größe |
---|---|
432429-140944.zip | 125.87 KB |
432429-140947.zip | 134.03 KB |
432429-140950.zip | 1.09 MB |
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