Can not install Windows 7 booting from a bootable USB.

[Tonymandoha]

Greetings,  I just purchased an HP from Costco. It comes with Windows 10,  but I actually need to downgrade it to Windows 7.  So I fumbled my way through the BIOS and managed to disable the secure boot feature.  I was able to boot from USB with a Windows 7 ISO bootable USB (Which I successfully used on another machine) and it begins to load, and I get to the first questions to choose the language and time / date and keyboard type US,  but I'm not able to press the Next Button,  I have no mouse or keyboard control.  I've unplugged them and tried different ports, but nothing seems to work.

Please help.

Thank you,

Anthony

[WAWood]

Tonymandoha

Sorry for the bad news, but you should have checked here BEFORE purchasing the PC.

HP does not supply Win7 drivers for your PC, which means is it never going to work properly in Win7 because you are stuck using the generic drivers that Microsoft installed as part of setting up Win7.

HP is not writing Win7 drivers for their Win10 PCs, so the drivers you need simply are not going to exist!

If the PC is still intact, then take it back to Cosco for a refund -- it is not going to work under Win7.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi, @Tonymandoha :

Your PC has the Intel Skylake chipset, which has some barriers to installing Windows 7.

1.  The Skylake chipset has no native USB2 support, which is why the USB keyboard and mouse won't work in a USB2 port during installation.

2. Windows 7 does not have the USB3 drivers needed to get the USB3 ports to work, which is why the KB and mouse don't work in the USB3 ports during installation.

The solution to #2, is to run this tool at the link below. There is a readme file for how to use the tool.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25476/Windows-7-USB-3-0-Creator-Utility

If you have any issues trying to find device drivers after you install W7, let me know and I will see what I can do to help.

I know where to find most of them, if not all of them.

I encourage you to make your set of W10 recovery media before proceeding to install W7, in case you want to, or need to go back to W10.

[Tonymandoha]

Thank you Paul,  that worked !  and I was able to get to the next step.

But I ran into this error when trying to find a partition to install on.

Windows cannot be installed to the disk.  The selected disk is of the GPT partition style.

I read online that I should try to delete all partitions and try and install then ?  But I want to check with you.

Thanks.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

If you selected legacy mode and disabled secure boot in the BIOS, you shouldn't get that error.

I read in your post that you disabled secure boot, but you also have to enable legacy mode too.

If you have done that already, then you can use a free utility such as this one to format the drive MBR-NTFS.

https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

I also had that problem once and I had to select the legacy DVD drive boot option and not the DVD drive that didn't show legacy.

I don't know if you have such an option with your PC when booting from a USB flash drive, but if you do, select legacy.

Did you make your set of recovery media?  Once you format the drive, you will have burned your bridges as far as recovering the PC, or you will have to order recovery media from HP.

[Tonymandoha]

Thank you Paul,  you're help is greatly apprecaited.

I made the recovery media as you suggested and went ahead and deleted the partitions, and that was it.  It then allowed me to create the new and I finished the install.

It seems I do need some help finding the drivers, the first thing I did was go to device manager.

Everything checks out well except Other Devices.

Ethernet Controller

Network Controller

PCI Memory Controller

PCI Simple Communication Controller

SM Bus Controller

Unknown device

Thank you in  advance 🙂

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Here are the links to the drivers you need. 

If the Intel chipset driver doesn't install the unknown device, I will need you to post the hardware ID for it.  I will give you the guidance to do that after I post the links to the other drivers you need.

SM Bus Controller:  Install this driver first and restart the PC.  That should also install the PCI Memory Controller.

The auto install file is the second one down on the left side of the webpage.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/20775/Intel-Chipset-Device-Software-INF-Update-Utility-?pr...

Did you install the graphics driver?  That will not show up where the other devices that need drivers are listed.

If not, here it is...Install this second and restart the PC.

http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/112195/en-us

Did you install the audio driver?  W7 installs a generic audio driver but this one will allow full functionality.

Accept the agreement.  Download and install the 2nd driver on the list. Install this 3rd and restart the PC.

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=24&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownT...

Ethernet Controller:  Download, unzip and run the setup application from the second file at the link below...

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=13&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTy...

Network Controller:  1st one on the left is for 64 bit.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26467/Intel-PROSet-Wireless-Software-and-Drivers-for-Windo...

You will also need the bluetooth driver for that model wlan card.  2nd one down on the left is for 64 bit.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26421/Intel-Wireless-Bluetooth-Software-for-Windows-7-?pro...

PCI Simple Communication Controller:  Try this one.  Download, unzip and run the setup.exe file.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26135/Intel-Management-Engine-Driver-for-Windows-7-8-1-for...

OK, if the chipset driver does not install the Unk device, here is how to find the hardware ID for a device that needs drivers.

Go to the device manager, and click on the Unk Dev needing the driver.

Then click on the Details tab at the top of the Unk Dev window.

Now you will see a Property drop down list and it will be set to Device Description.

Drop down on that list, and select the 2nd item (Hardware ID's).

Post the top string of characters that you see in the window.

[Tonymandoha]

Thank you Paul, you're a life saver 🙂

So everything worked perfectly up to the PCI Simple Controller.  Upon install, the message says that I need Kernel-mode Drvier Framework 1.11 from the microsoft download center. I downloaded the x64 and ran it,  and the message reads that it's searching for updates on the system and it's been searching for awhile... I'll let it run ....

With reagrds to the Unknown Device, the characters are:

ACPI\MSFT0101

*MSFT0101

I also ran the Microsoft Update Tool and it's also "Checking for updates" - perhaps Microsoft is just slow allowing me to check on those updates ?  I don't know, it's been running for awhile in the checking stage.

Thank you again for all your help.  Could not have done this with you Paul.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

I have zipped up and attached the Microsoft hotfix you need for the Unknown Device, below. 

It is the TPM 2.0 module used for W10 Pro bitlocker.  This device will only work when you have W7 Ultimate installed, so it is N/A for your system.

However, this will install the driver... unzip and run the file.

The other problems...  Just for kicks, see if running the IMEI driver from a HP notebook with the Skylake chipset will install the PCI simple comms controller.

This package provides the Intel Management Engine Interface (MEI) Driver for the supported notebook models and operating systems. The Intel Management Engine Interface enables communication between the host operating system and the Intel Management Engine firmware.

http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp75501-76000/sp75509.exe

For some reason (and I have yet to really look into the matter to understand why it is happening), Windows Update often doesn't work on new installations of Vista, W7, W8 and W8.1.  I have yet to have a problem with W10.

So, try this and see if you can kick-start Windows Update in to gear...

NOTE:   If W7 SP1 is not already installed, then you need to download and install SP1 before running the below updates.

Standalone download for W7 SP1...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5842

1. Disconnect the network cable or disable the WiFi.

2. Install these two updates from a flash drive before connecting to the network and running Windows Update.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3083710

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=51208

You have to stop the Windows Update service BEFORE installing each of the above updates: net stop wuauserv

You run the net stop wuauserv command from the windows command prompt utility, and you need to run it as an administrator.

After the updates are installed, restart the PC and hopefully Windows Update will work again.

Because there are lots of updates to install (around 200), it will still take time for this process to run.

[Tonymandoha]

Paul,  THANK YOU KINDLY!

Everything works and running smoothly.

Thank you again for all your help