Downgrade Windows 8 to Windows 7

[lasvegaswireman]

MrB_007,

****Disclaimer*****

HP doesn't recommend the installation of Windows 7 on a computer shipped with Windows 8, nor will it support the installation of Windows 7. HP will not provide Windows 7 drivers and suitable drivers may not be available for the hardware in the computer. Also, Windows 7 may not support some of the hardware or software features designed for the computer.

Make sure you create your HP Recovery Discs or USB Flash Recovery media before modifying or changing ANYTHING.

You will need to DISABLE "Secure Boot" and maybe ENABLE "Legacy Support" in the "BIOS Secure Boot cofiguration" on the settings page shown below, before you can attempt to install Windows 7;

or

Additionally, as the hard drive is partitioned as GPT, you must boot the computer using the "UEFI - CD/DVD drive" or "UEFI USB Flash drive" options in the "F9" boot menu. If "UEFI - CD/DVD drive",  "UEFI USB Flash drive" or something to that effect doesn't exist in the boot menu, please post a screen shot and/or descibe the listed boot options.

I suggest using Windows 7 SP1 for the best intallation experience. If you need Windows SP1, please see "How to Install Windows 7 Without the Disc" to download and create your own. If the DVD refuses to boot as UEFI, you may need to use a USB Flash drive (may require DISABLING "Fast Boot" in the BIOS) as the installation media. Please download the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool to create a Windows 7 SP1 USB Flash drive. Some computers may not recognize a valid UEFI enabled USB Flash drive if it is formated as NTFS.

It appears HP is only providing drivers for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 for your HP Pavilion 15-n028us Notebook Computer. Many of the needed Windows 7 drivers can be on older HP models support pages and/or at the chipset manufacturer's websites.  Please post the Windows Device Manager's "Hardware Ids" for all missing and/or unknown devices, as shown in the example below;

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Please click the white KUDOS star to show your appreciation

[HPAuraLee]

This helped, though I have a Pav 20 b410z. Used your specs links to look up my specs, then googled the Win 7 drivers. My REaltek was RTL8175EH-VB-CG. HP specs didn't list the wireless NIC specs...grrr, but will likely yank that for security anyway. AMD chipset for me is A68, fwiw. And I have a 64bit machine.

[ptwo]

The AMD chipset link you provided on 9-28-13 no longer works.  I would be greatly indebted to you if you could provide a current link to the chipset you think I need.  (I have a p2-1322 that came with Windows 8, and I installed a new hard drive, and have installed Windows 7 Professional with an installation DVD. )

Thanks

Ptwo 

[ptwo]

The AMD chipset link you provided on 9-28-13 (message 11 under this topic) no longer works.  I would be greatly indebted to you if you could provide a current link to the chipset you think I need.  (I have a p2-1322 that came with Windows 8, and I installed a new hard drive, and have installed Windows 7 Professional with an installation DVD. )

Thanks.

Ptwo

[lasvegaswireman]

Please download and try the AMD Chipset Drivers (Chipset / AHCI / USB 3.0) from AMD's download page. I suspect this is the correct driver and should resolve any USB 3.0, SATA and SMBus driver issues.

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Please click the White KUDOS "Thumbs Up" to show your appreciation

[jmstable]

Sir

I bought this same laptop mar 4,

I love it except windows 8.

I had called hp and ask to downgrade to windows 7, First

Justification: I could not make windows 8 work, and the ie browser.

They told me to call microsoft

Maybe this will help.

Cost $99. premium tech support

I had my own copy of windows 7 ultimate 64 bit.

MS will give you a product key, will get your windows 7 installed

Call 1800-642-7676

[ptwo]

The tips provided me above on my earlier posts under this topic have been helpful, and are much appreciated. But I still seem to have an instable system.

As stated above, I have a p2-1322 that came with Windows 8. I replaced the factory HD with a Hitachhi SATA Deskstar HD, and I then installed Windows 7 Pro with my installation DVD. At times it seems to have worked fine, and both the internet and all my programs would seem to work fine. But it has also crashed numerous times, and been out of commission most of the time.

It crashed terribly after I tried to install Nuance dictation software (but I was finally able to do a restore after many trials and tribulations). It has also crashed terribly twice when I was doing two separate Windows recommended updates. Each of the 3 times it has crashed, I have been unable to use the computer for at least several days or months, and I would get the error message "Error No Boot Disk Has Been Detected Or The Disk Has Failed".  Each time I would exhaust all of the startup diagnostic tools available, and all of the F key menu options.  All to no avail.  But then I would come back to the computer a few days or weeks later, and it would miraculously start up fine. But even when it seemed to be operating normally, every time I shut it down and tried to later restart it, I would get the error message "Error No Boot Disk Has Been Detected Or The Disk Has Failed". But if I then just did a hard shut down, and restarted the pc, it would start up fine, so this became my regular routine for many months. (I would generally try to just keep the computer in sleep mode to avoid this exercise.)

After Windows did some automatic recommended updates this last April, the pc crashed again, and I got the following error message (which is the same error message I have received each time this pc has crashed):

Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 083)

For Atheros PCIE Ethernet Controller v2.0.2.7(11/02/10)

"DHCP" flashes off and on for a while, and then the following error message appears on the same screen (just below the 2 lines above):

Client ...(too long to type)

GUID: ...(too long to type)

PXE-E53:No boot Filename received

PXE-MOF: Exiting Intel PXE ROM

Error No Boot Disk Has Been Detected Or The Disk Has Failed

After exhausting all of the startup diagnostic tools available, I was still getting the error message "Error No Boot Disk Has Been Detected Or The Disk Has Failed". Out of frustration, I didn't touch the computer again until earlier today (more than 2 months after it last crashed). When I turned it on, it recommended that I launch "Startup Repair" (instead of "Start Windows Normally"), so I launched the startup repair. When the startup repair process was completed, it automatically restarted the pc, and all I got was the familiar error message "Error No Boot Disk Has Been Detected Or The Disk Has Failed". I did a hard shut down, and restarted the pc, and it started up normally, and appears to be working fine.

I'm not sure when this pc will crash again, but history tells me it's just a matter of time. I should probably shut down the Windows update feature, but then I won't be receiving important updates (including security updates), so that doesn't sound like the best plan. I am frankly afraid to try to load Nuance Dragon onto the pc (which is frustrating because one of the main reasons I bought this pc is to have a pc in a quiet part of the house where I could do some dictation). 

I am writing this post because I am about to concede defeat and go back to the factory-provided generic Windows 8 operating system, and not use the superior Windows 7 Professional. If anyone has any tips that would allow me to keep my Windows 7 Professional operating system without having the problems I've described above, I would be very grateful.

Thanks in advance for your time and attention. 

Best regards, Ptwo

[ptwo]

One more fact to add to the posting I added above about 10 minutes ago. 

My p2-1322 came with a 500 GB HD and Windows 8 home edition.  I installed a Hitachi 1 TB HD that I wasn't using, and  then installed Windows 7 Pro on my p2-1322.  For some reason, the pc only showed 330 GB on the HD when I was installing the Windows 7, and it has never shown more than about 330 GB.  (I guess I was hoping it would somehow fix itself after the install).  When I now go into Disk Management, that is also only showing a total of  330GB.

Just mentioning this in case someone might find it relevant to my problems described in my earlier posting of today. (If someone has some tips on making my operating system more stable, and also knows how to allow my pc to see the whole 1TB, that would of course be great also.)

Thanks,  Ptwo 

[ptwo · Accepted solution]

SOLUTION FOUND !

After much trials and tribulations, I finally got my HP p2-1322 PC working fine now with Windows 7 Pro. (It came with Windows 8 pre-installed.)

The instructions on the following link worked great for me:

http://blog.bitcollectors.com/adam/2012/10/installing-windows-7-on-an-hp-p2-1334-desktop-pc/

Or just google "Installing Windows 7 on an HP p2-1334 Desktop PC"  (The p2-1334 and p2-1322 have virtually identical specifications.)

Hope this helps someone else.