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Boot setup from virtual DVD: Zalman ZM-VE200 enclosure
For years I've been using this rebranded iodd enclosure, USB 2.0, which can create hardware-based virtual optical drives from ISOs and various other disk image formats. Under Windows 10 I've been using it so far for upgrade installs.
This week I undertook to do a clean install on a family member's ASUS X501A notebook PC. After reconfiguring the UEFI BIOS for CSM, I booted the 1511 ISO from the computer's USB 2.0 port and started to run setup. Just short of letting me start the setup process, the installer told me that the a driver for the DVD drive was missing and would not let me go further until I provided one.
On real optical drives, the manufacturers have occasionally released firmware upgrades to deal with this type of situation. This is a first for me with the Zalman enclosure - and the firmware I'm running is the last they issued which supports NTFS disks. In the end I used Rufus and a flash drive to create an installation disc and completed the process successfully.
I don't suppose anyone knows of a workaround should this happen again (except to buy a newer iodd enclosure, I guess).