Windows 7 installation help

j_mo

Hiya guy's,

I'm not sure if this is the proper place to post this so please feel free to move it if necessary. I bought a HP laptop a couple of years ago with Windows 8 pre-installed on it. The hard drive started to play up so I bought a new one. I bought a 500gb and replaced the 750gb that wasn't working. I tried reinstalling windows 8 but had no joy so I eventually just went for Ubuntu 12.04. I recently decided that I'd try and install windows 7, but after several attempts I was unsuccessful and kept getting a message saying that it was unable to find a partition to install windows 7 on. I had used gparted to format the hard drive to ntfs but nothing seemed to work. Any help or pointers would be great. Thanks.

Digital Solitude

If you delete any partitions from the drive so the whole thing is unallocated space it may work? Worth a shot

Baked.noodle

When installing win 7 you can select the custom option. From there you can delete any unwanted partitions that you may have and select unallocated space and click next. Agree to allow windows to create additional partitions. EDIT: Let windows format the drive if you have already tried Gparted.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ie/windows/installing-reinstalling-windows#1TC=windows-7

Using the Custom installation option if no operating system is installed
The Custom option installs a new copy of Windows 7 on the partition you choose. This erases your files, programs, and settings. If there are any files on the partition, back them up before proceeding.

To install Windows 7 on a computer without an operating system

To do this, you'll need to start, or boot, your computer using the Windows 7 installation disc or USB flash drive.

Turn on your computer, insert the Windows 7 installation disc or USB flash drive, and then shut down your computer.

Restart your computer.

Press any key when prompted, and then follow the instructions that appear.

On the Install Windows page, enter your language and other preferences, and then click Next.

If the Install Windows page doesn't appear, and you're not asked to press any key, you might need to change some system settings. To learn how to do this, see Start your computer from a Windows 7 installation disc or USB flash drive.

On the Please read the license terms page, if you accept the license terms, click I accept the license terms, and then click Next.

On the Which type of installation do you want? page, click Custom.

On the Where do you want to install Windows? page, choose the partition that you want to install Windows 7 on, or click Unallocated Space if no partitions are listed, and then click Next.

If a dialog box appears saying that Windows might create additional partitions for system files, or that the partition you chose might contain recovery files or other types of files from your computer manufacturer, click OK.

Follow the instructions to finish installing Windows 7, which include naming your computer and setting up an initial user account.

jayo26

Baked.noodle wrote: »

When installing win 7 you can select the custom option. From there you can delete any unwanted partitions that you may have and select unallocated space and click next. Agree to allow windows to create additional partitions. EDIT: Let windows format the drive if you have already tried Gparted.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ie/windows/installing-reinstalling-windows#1TC=windows-7

I think his problem is that windows installation is not finding his hard drive so he cant delete or edit partitions its happened me a few times I used another computer to format the hard drive it worked this might help.

j_mo

jayo26 wrote:

I think his problem is that windows installation is not finding his hard drive so he cant delete or edit partitions its happened me a few times I used another computer to format the hard drive it worked this might help.

Thanks for the replies. I'm thinking that it's possibly something to do with what jayo said. I've tried to let the windows 7 installation format the hard drive as it was installing but I kept on getting that same error. I might try and see can I source another computer and reformat the hard drive. Could it have anything to do with the fact that the bios of the computer is reading windows 8?

jayo26

j_mo wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. I'm thinking that it's possibly something to do with what jayo said. I've tried to let the windows 7 installation format the hard drive as it was installing but I kept on getting that same error. I might try and see can I source another computer and reformat the hard drive. Could it have anything to do with the fact that the bios of the computer is reading windows 8?

Ok wait when you go to install windows do you get as far as the screen that says upgrade or custom? If so when you get to custom does it then say select a partion to instal windows on and shownyour hard drive there???

Baked.noodle

Yep, and if you don't have a partition select unallocated space. Or you can use an existing partition.

jayo26

I think your problem is that in some cases windows 8 hdds are formatted different to windows 7 hdds and to get around this you will need to delete all partitions on your hard drive when you are installing windows 7 and then just creat a new partition to install windows 7 on. You will find these option when installing windows 7 when you select custom advances and select hard drive options.

j_mo

Baked.noodle wrote:

Yep, and if you don't have a partition select unallocated space. Or you can use an existing partition.

Thanks for all the replies. I do get as far as the installation screen and I have clicked on both installations. The normal one and the advanced option. In the advanced option, I'm able to delete a current partition and format and create a new one but it doesn't make any difference unfortunately. I was wondering if it would be anything to do with installing windows 7 instead of windows 8. Or possibly, because I originally had a 750gb hard drive installed and now I've got a 500gb installed instead?

jayo26

j_mo wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. I do get as far as the installation screen and I have clicked on both installations. The normal one and the advanced option. In the advanced option, I'm able to delete a current partition and format and create a new one but it doesn't make any difference unfortunately. I was wondering if it would be anything to do with installing windows 7 instead of windows 8. Or possibly, because I originally had a 750gb hard drive installed and now I've got a 500gb installed instead?

Have you deleted all partitions on the hard drive so it all just shows up as unallocated space? And then just,creat a new partition for the default size that comes up?

PropJoe10

j_mo wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. I do get as far as the installation screen and I have clicked on both installations. The normal one and the advanced option. In the advanced option, I'm able to delete a current partition and format and create a new one but it doesn't make any difference unfortunately. I was wondering if it would be anything to do with installing windows 7 instead of windows 8. Or possibly, because I originally had a 750gb hard drive installed and now I've got a 500gb installed instead?

Are you able to just revert everything to unallocated space and then click on Next? You dont need to manually create partitions in the Windows installer. Windows will do it for you - it creates a SYSTEM RESERVED partition and a C: partition automatically.

I would also try a different Windows 7 installation medium, in case the installer is corrupted. Are you installing from a DVD or USB?

j_mo

I've tried both ways. I've tried creating the partition and letting the installer finding it and I've also left it unformatted and it hasn't made any difference. I was loading if from a USB but it was definitely acting strange. When I put the USB drive in and booted up, it wants to look for a missing dvd driver. Then I put in and booted from the dvd and it was saying it couldn't find bootmgr.exe and the only way I could get past that screen was to load the USB drive and dvd together. That at least got me to the installation screen.

Kristopherus

Have a look here:http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/windows-7-ultimate-free-download-iso-32-and-64-bit/