Windows 7 VM Unable to Passthrough USB Device (Unknown Driver)

[jonl]

Hey there everyone. For the past month or so I've been working to get a Windows 7 machine online to do some work on USB drives. I've been unable across multiple distros and installations to get all of the USB drivers detected and installed. Right now I have an activated windows 7 professional 32bit install that is fully updated and the only thing I can't get working is the USB passthrough.

A fresh out of the box install ends up having two unknown devices. This is of course after installing the virtio drivers. I've also attempted to scan the older versions to see if something would work, but no luck.

Last night I dug up this post, which finally solved one of the unknown devices: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/unknown-device-in-win7-vm.49698/

In proxmox I have it set to passthrough the entire USB device and it seems to work -- a device shows up in the device manager like this:



Same issue: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/win7-installation-missing-usb-drivers.132451

I've also attempted to pass through the entire usb controller and the same device shows up. If I unplug the USB device from the computer that of course goes away.
I've tried the mobo drivers as well as all of the virtio drivers. Any ideas? This is just an off the shelf USB drive.

 

[jonl]

Ok so apparently this due to no usb 3.0 drivers in windows 7... i tried all the ones out there I could find but couldnt make it work. I'll just bite the bullet and build a dedicated box for it.

 

[Skulyka]

Hey, I'm struggling with the same issue here. Did you managed to find a solution for this?
What "building a dedicated box for it" means?

 

[jonl]

I did not. I ended up buying an old PC and installing on there. (It was still a challenge) but I got it done.
I have a VM with win7 I use for manipulating stuff but I've given up on ever having USB support on that system.

Good luck!

 

[Skulyka]

Hmm. Thanks. I don't specifically need win7 but my "home server" is not the beefiest machine...
Would you think changing to a win10 vm would help?

 

[jonl]

Yea I think that would work -- the issue I had was windows 7 doesnt support USB 3.0 but all the modern motherboards only have USB 3.0.
If you install windows 10 it shouldn't really use that much more power (a little) but you'll solve those USB issues for sure.

Even if you went Windows 8.1 I think you'd be better (people hate that one, but I lived with it)

 

[Skulyka]

Thanks!
I don't hate win8, but I loved 7 so I went with that!
I think I'll move to win10 then, and hope for the best!