Downgrade Pavilion 500-201qe from windows 8.1 to windows 7

[analystguy]

Disabled Secure boot and enabled legacy boot in BIOS. When attempting to install Win 7 via USB stick, get error that am missing drivers. Issue is Win 7 installer doesn' t have native support for USB 3.

Has anyone successfully downgradfed this PC to windows 7? Is a format to NTFS required?

Thanks

Dave

[mdklassen]

From: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Operating-Systems-and-Recovery/Windows-7-installation-USB-driv...

‎08-09-2017 02:50 PM

I recommend seeing if you can use the Cloud Recovery Client Software to install W7 Pro on your PC.

This package provides the Cloud Recovery Client for supported models running a supported operating system.

This Client Utility enables users to download the Recovery Kit from the cloud.

http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp79501-80000/sp79977.exe

[mdklassen]

I recommend seeing if you can use the Cloud Recovery Client Software to install W7 Pro on your PC.

This package provides the Cloud Recovery Client for supported models running a supported operating system.

This Client Utility enables users to download the Recovery Kit from the cloud.

http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp79501-80000/sp79977.exe

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi, @analystguy :

The HP Cloud Recovery Client tool will only works for supported HP business desktop and notebook PC's.

Yours is a consumer class desktop PC.

The only suggestions I can offer would be to use the below utility to put the USB3 drivers into your W7 installation flash drive, or boot the W7 installation media from one of the PC's USB2 ports.

There is a readme file on the webpage with instructions...

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

Select the file version for the operating system that you plan to run the utility on.

If you can get W7 to install, then you should be able to use all of the W7 drivers and software from this link...

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-pavilion-500-200-desktop-pc-series/5399647

[analystguy]

Thanks for the quick response. I will give it a shot and let you know how it goes.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Also make sure that the KB and mouse are plugged into USB2 ports as well.

[analystguy]

Thank you Paul.

Adding the USB 3 drivers to the Win 7 iso worked the installation proceeded as expected. Any thoughts on changing the BIOS from HP to the montherboard OEM bios?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.

I would not recommend it because I believe that is a proprietary HP BIOS chip in there, and who knows what would happen if you tried to flash the chip with the OEM BIOS.

You may want to check the motherboard manufacturer's forum to see if anyone has done that successfully.

[analystguy]

Made the big mistake of downloading and installing HP Support Assistant from the Win 7 driver support URL mentioned above. The System now tries to re-configure windows on boot. Cannot make it into safe-mode without it launching HP support Assistant. After one hour, still showing that it is in step 3 of 3 and not to turn off computer.

For anyone reading this thread, i would suggest that you not install HP Support Assistant after downgrading. Instead I would add driver support as required in device manager.