HP Pavilion g6-2102au Notebook PC with lenovo software?

[DarrenEMG]

Hi, I wanted an old windows laptop to use for my astrophotography and my father-in-law had an old HP Pavilion g6 that he said I could use. I created a new admin account for myself and deleted his. Once I logged in with my new account I was puzzled to see a lenovo desktop screen, with a link to a lenovo manual and a "lenovo settings" shortcut on the desktop.

I decided to do a factory reset and the virtual agent told me to run HP Recovery Manager. However that isn't installed on this computer, and I don't have any recovery media. I had a look to see if there was a recovery drive. There is a d: drive, but it it is labeled "Lenovo".

I wondered if I could download a windows 7 iso from Microsoft, but when I entered my product key they said it was a preinstalled version and I should contact the computer manufacturer.

Am I able to download a windows7 iso from HP support?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

HP never offered W7 ISO files for download.

The only suggestion I can offer would be to download the W7 Home Premium 64 bit ISO file from the link below (toward the bottom of the page).

Windows 7 Home Premium Free Download ISO 32 Bit 64 Bit (getintopc.com)

You can use the Microsoft tool that I zipped up and attached below that you will need to transfer the ISO file to a DVD or USB flash drive so that it is bootable, or you can use a different free utility such as Rufus.

[DarrenEMG]

That is excellent, thank you!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

[DarrenEMG]

Hi, just a follow-up in case anybody with the same problem finds this thread. As of Jan 2021 Microsoft do still provide downloads of Win7+SP1 ISOs, but they aren't advertised. I used the auomated chatbot and at the end it asked me if it had solved my problem. I selected "No" and the bot asked me if I would like to talk to a real person. Once I explained my situation to the real person I was given a download link.

However the ISO is 6gb in size so you can't burn it to a dvd, it has to be a usb thumbdrive. I am having problems getting this old laptop to boot from a USB, but I found I didn't need to actually boot from it. I booted from the old windows, inserted the thumbdrive and ran setup. It worked beautifully.