Installing Windows 7 on HP Pavilion G6-2210SA

I've just bought this laptop from Curry's (bit of a bargain I thought) and naturally tried to wipe it and install 7 pro when I got home, only to find that it just won't take it at all. Apparently, Windows 7 and older is now a legacy OS, and isn't supported by the BIOS. There is an option to load legacy OSs in the BIOS, but then when you get the install Windows 7 screen it can't detect the CD drive, even though it's spinning away quite happily.
I'm guessing this is a restriction put on by the manufacturers/Microsoft to stop people doing what I'm trying to do... Has anyone managed to get Windows 7 onto a Windows 8 OEM laptop?

I've had this, and my solution was to use an external DVD drive, or to install from a USB.

Ohhh thanks for the tip! Will try that this weekend.

check the EUFI boot options.... (EUFI/UEFI whatever, can never remember).
Other than that; USB.....

If you install Windows 7 from a USB flash drive on a UEFI-based system you need to ensure that the flash drive is formatted as FAT32 (NTFS and ExFAT will not work).

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Originally Posted by kirchie

when you get the install Windows 7 screen it can't detect the CD drive, even though it's spinning away quite happily.

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This issue can sometimes be caused by corrupt install media.

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Originally Posted by Arthur

If you install Windows 7 from a USB flash drive on a UEFI-based system you need to ensure that the flash drive is formatted as FAT32 (NTFS and ExFAT will not work).


This issue can sometimes be caused by corrupt install media.

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I'll try re-burning my ISO as well then. Cheers all

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Originally Posted by kirchie

I've just bought this laptop from Curry's (bit of a bargain I thought) and naturally tried to wipe it and install 7 pro when I got home, only to find that it just won't take it at all. Apparently, Windows 7 and older is now a legacy OS, and isn't supported by the BIOS. There is an option to load legacy OSs in the BIOS, but then when you get the install Windows 7 screen it can't detect the CD drive, even though it's spinning away quite happily.
I'm guessing this is a restriction put on by the manufacturers/Microsoft to stop people doing what I'm trying to do... Has anyone managed to get Windows 7 onto a Windows 8 OEM laptop?

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I am having a nighmare with a customers Hp G6-2210sa
Have managed to install win7 fine, but half the devices are not installing in the device manager, and there are NO win 7 drivers available for them...Arrrr
I also can not now access their hidden partition to be able to restore the machine to win 8.!

If anyone has any ideas, they would be very welcome.,!

Chris

Registered solely for the purpose of resolving this problem for people having done this myself this weekend!

First of all, before trying this make sure you backup (rule 1 of I.T.)!!!i HP provide a utility to create restore media - you need 5 DVDs and about 2 hours but gives you peace of mind you can restore to how you were if needed.

The things to be aware of when you do the install are that the wireless and wired network devices need drivers to work. This means you either need a separate computer to download / burn them, or to download them to USB before you wipe Windows 8. So, go into device manager, find the name and model of the wireless and wired network adapters and then find the windows 7 software for them from the HP site. The way I did this, was to search for "hardware name" pavilion windows 7 so for example, the wi-fi adapter is a Ralink 5930gt or something similar, so you google

Ralink 5930gt pavilion windows 7

and then download the relevant service pack.

You need to do the same for every piece of hardware in your computer. Then install windows 7 and download Windows 7 drivers for these pieces of hardware from similas hp machines. Note that pretty much every piece of hardware in the 2210sa is in other HP machines which have at one point or another run windows 7 so HP do have drivers for every piece of hardware, but you have to download them by pretending to own a different model.

From my hardware scan, the things you needed were

Ralink RT5390R 802.11bgn Wi-Fi Adapter
Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller
IDT High Definition Audio CODEC
Realtek PCIe Card Reader (this was tricky - the Windows 8 drivers actually worked on Windows 7 - couldn't find any others that did)
Intel(R) 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family (direct from Intel)
Intel HD4000 graphics drivers
Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller

Finally, to get the function buttons working the way you expect, you need to download the HP Quick Launch software for Windows 7.

Anyway, hope that helps someone. Mine seems to be up and running perfectly, though I am installing Windows 8 back into a separate partition (and without the bloatware provided by HP) since I paid for it, and I figure I may as well keep a copy for when the software I need to use gets upgraded to Win8.

Cheers

T.

Also, for the recovery partition, if you have a Windows 8 disk (any windows 8 disk) or an existing windows 8 machine, you should be able to create a windows 8 recovery disk / usb which should allow you to restore as I believe there is normally an option for "recover from machine image" or something similar in the advanced options.

Finally, if all else fails, you can order recovery media from HP, but it does cost £30 or so for something which should be provided with the computer.

T.

Cheers Dimensions, that's a really thorough gide!
I've been using the laptop with Windows 8 for now, but as soon as I get a weekend day free it'll be going back to Windows 7. I thought I owed it to 8 to give it a fair try. But it's just so unusable and counter intuative. As soon as Steam is out of beta I'm going Linux tbh.

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Originally Posted by kirchie

Cheers Dimensions, that's a really thorough gide!
I've been using the laptop with Windows 8 for now, but as soon as I get a weekend day free it'll be going back to Windows 7. I thought I owed it to 8 to give it a fair try. But it's just so unusable and counter intuative. As soon as Steam is out of beta I'm going Linux tbh.

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Just so you know, dual booting 7 and 8 works flawlessly so I'd suggest extracting you Windows 8 key before you do the upgrade process (Belarc Advisor dug this out for me). That way you can keep the licence for what you paid for - my guess is that Win 8 will be a lot better by service pack 3 and then you can reinstall it if needed. To be honest the key is actually embedded in the bios, but having it physically is just an extra safety step.

Also, please, for your peace of mind, burn the recovery dvd's or a recovery image to USB before you start. I work with computers for a living and I was still a little nervous as I wiped out everything on the computer, not knowing whether the drivers for Windows 7 would work!

I had a full retail copy of Windows 8 that I just installed over the top. If there's one thing I hate about OEM licenses it's all the blotware that comes with it.
I did try and burn the recovery discs, but it kept failing so I gave up and wiped it anyway. It's still got the recovery partition though.

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Originally Posted by kirchie

I had a full retail copy of Windows 8 that I just installed over the top. If there's one thing I hate about OEM licenses it's all the blotware that comes with it.
I did try and burn the recovery discs, but it kept failing so I gave up and wiped it anyway. It's still got the recovery partition though.

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I did exactly the same for the same reasons. I think as long as you have the recovery partition, you should be able to restore in the worst case scenario. I did a full-on wipe (diskpart clean to remove all partitions) and then repartition, so if it hadn't worked I'd have been so out of luck without the recovery disks!

Success! Now running Windows 7. Like you suggested I had to use Win7 drivers from slightly different models (my sister's got the exact same machine but with less memory and storage, so I used that model number instead). I did have to use diskpart and clean the disk to get rid of the GPT on it though, so I've lost the recovery partition. But I don't think I'll loose any sleep over it tbh. And I think that may be what was causing Windows 7 to fail during install the first time round...

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Originally Posted by kirchie

Success! Now running Windows 7. Like you suggested I had to use Win7 drivers from slightly different models (my sister's got the exact same machine but with less memory and storage, so I used that model number instead).

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What model number is your sister's then? I've managed to get most drivers from Intel, Realtek etc but I still can't find a version of HP Quicklaunch Software that works (have tried a few)