New Hard Drive won't install new Operating System

[dougaljoe]

Hi There

I bought a new HP Pavilion 550-055na with Windows 8 a month or so ago but wish to use Windows 7. However, I have decided I will keep the Hard Drive the PC came with and have the option of Windows 8 sometime in future if I wish. Therefore, I'm installing Window's 7 on a new Hard Drive.

My problem is that the fresh copy of Windows 7 won't install on my new Hard Drive.  I keep getting:

Secure Boot Violation

Invalid Signature Detected. Check Secure Boot Policy in Setup

It then takes me to a black screen after I press Enter/Ok which says the following.

Check Media Presence.......

Media Present.......

Start PXE over IPv4.

If I press F12 on powering up, I get a blue box asking me to select a boot device. The only options are:

Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller IPv4

Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller IPv6

and Exit using the arrow keys

How do change the secure boot policy?  If I do so, does this then mean that I can install my Windoes 7 on my new Hard Drive? Also, providing I do, will I still be able to use my Windows 8 OS Drive after changing the secure boot policy?

Any help would be greately appreciated.

Kindest Regards

DJ 

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

You need to enable legacy mode and disable secure boot in the BIOS in order to install and run W7.

Please see this link for where to change those settings...this references adding a video card, but this is how you change the settings no matter why you need to change them.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03653200/

[dougaljoe]

Thank you Paul

I will give this a try in the next couple of days once I'm back home and mark as solution then.

Your help is much appreciated   🙂

Regards

DJ.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, DJ.

[dougaljoe]

Hi Paul

I managed to get a new copy Windows 7 on to my HP Pavilion 550-055na using a Hard Drive which had an old version of Windows 7 on it. It appeared to keep some of my old stuff on it which was a bit unespected as I thought the install would format the drive.

My problem is that, although I install the Realtek NIC Driver (sp71102.exe) from the Windows 7driver downloads for my machine, it says that it hasn't installed and Windows cannot find the driver. Therefore, I'm kinda at a loss now and don't know what to do. The install seemes to take a second or two.

Any ideas? I'm stumped and don't know what to do. I've been installing OSs for years and the Network/Ethernet driver usually goes without a hitch. 

By the way, I installed it first using the User Account and also enabled the Admin account and tried installing it using this too. The graphics and audio drivers installed fine by the way. 

DJ

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Windows 7 will not format the drive unless you tell it to.  It installs 'over' any existing Windows operating system, and creates a Windows.old folder.

I like when it does that because I then explore that folder and copy and files and internet favorite settings I had on the windows.old folder to my new user profile.

Now as to why the Realtek ethernet driver won't install...

What shows up in the device manager? 

Is there an ethernet controller device listed with a ! mark, or is there a Realtek ethernet controller with a problem listed under the network adapters device category?

[dougaljoe]

Hi Paul

What I get is an ethernet controller device listed with the ! explanation mark. If I right-click and go to properties, it says that the driver is not installed. If I select 'update the driver' option and navigate to the folder the NIC Driver is in, windows cannot find it, nor can windows find it if I let it search my PC for it.

There are also a generic Family contoller and something else listed, each with their respective ! explanation marks.

By the way all the user created folder's from the old OS's C: Drive are intact and not in a windows.old folder. Weird eh? But not a problem.

Thanks for your patience Paul. I've never had this happen before.

DJ

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

That sure is wierd.  I have never heard of that before either.

Did you click on the driver folder to ensure the drivers were extracted from the exe file?

I have noticed on a lot of drivers for the HP consumer desktops the files don't extract in the swsetup folder.

See if this works...

Download and install this free file utility...the second one on the list is for 64 bit.

http://www.7-zip.org/

After you install 7-zip, download and save, but do not run the driver.

This package provides the Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Driver for supported models running a supported operating system.

File name: sp71102.exe

After you downloaded the driver, right click on it and select 7-Zip from the list of options.

Have 7-Zip Extract to: and let it extract the file to its folder name (sp71102).

Go to the device manager and click on the ethernet controller device needing the driver.

Click on the driver tab, click on Update driver.

Select the Browse my computer for driver software option and browse to the driver folder 7-zip created.

Make sure the Include Subfolders box is checked and the driver should install.

Then restart the PC.

[dougaljoe]

Now that's very impressive Paul 

Everything you've said has worked absolutely fine. For some reason the driver wasn't extracting or wasn't extracting to somewhere I knew. What you recommended worked a treat and also for my original problem with the secure boot issue.

I would like to thank you very much for your kind help. I'm now up and running with no issues.  Your help is greatly appreciated and I've always gotten any support I need on the HP forums really quick.  Thank you.

Kindest Regards

DJ

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime, DJ.

Glad to have been of assistance.

Best Regards,

Paul