Removing Windows 8 (HP 250)

[foofighterjim]

So the time has finally come where I have laptops that I need to remove Windows 8 from. Specifically HP 250 laptops, I spent the whole of yesterday afternoon reading guide after guide and looking at various youtube clips but I just can't get it done. Even when restarting from Windows to change UEFI firmware settings I still only have to option to enter what appears to be the standard BIOS.

 

From here I have:

 

1. Cleared all secure boot keys.
   
2. Disabled Secure Boot.
   
3. Enabled Legacy Support.
   

 

Under this there are then two boot orders UEFI and Legacy, no matter what I try I can't disable the UEFI boot from taking priority. Even selecting the boot device list on startup only presents the UEFI list, this obviously reads my Windows 7 media but refuses to install (as I would expect booting from UEFI). I'm just about to see if there are any BIOS updates from HP but if not I am truly stuck (or missing something obvious!).

 

Any ideas?

[Michael]

Some early Toshiba C50's (without optical drives) had the same problem. You couldn't boot from USB or PXE boot without UEFI enabled. Really stupid on Toshiba's part!

 

At the time the BIOS was also current, so in turn I was forced to remove each SATA disk in turn and image from another PC.

 

Windows 7 Sysprep than ran as expected and joined the domain.

[nickbro]

Odd, I managed to PXE boot the 250, booted into windows, control panel, advanced restart, bios, disabled secure boot, rebooted, hit DEL straight away, back into bios, disabled the other setting, then enabled PXE. Restart and then F12, select PXE Boot.

 

Sorry, can't remember what the actual settings in the bios are, but it's on the boot tab, disabled secure boot I think, reboot, then enable legacy stuff, which will allow old style PXE boot too work

[foofighterjim]

Thanks for the reply @Michael.

 

There was a BIOS update available but from what I could see all it changed was adding Japanese keyboard support! Its not that it wont USB or PXE boot its just that it will only UEFI boot and I have no way of making legacy take priority. Even if I image the drive away from the machine; if I can't make legacy boot take priority would it not still fail to boot Windows 7 from HDD?

[Michael]

Yes very true, Windows 7 doesn't support UEFI you're right.

 

I have seen it in some BIOSes where you have to disable just Secure Boot, save changes, reboot the machine then re-enter the BIOS a second time and set the legacy boot configuration. On Toshiba's (normally) you can do it all in one go, but I remember coming across some Asus's where you had to do it in two stages.

[chazzy2501]

hang on.. I thought that Windows 7 does support UEFI but only the 64bit version... I also thought that you could purloin this and use it with the 32bit version.

 

I remember this on a tablet install.

[foofighterjim]

On Toshiba's (normally) you can do it all in one go, but I remember coming across some Asus's where you had to do it in two stages.

 

Still no joy unfortunately, I will give the reseller a call in a minute. Failing that an interesting conversation with HP no doubt. Thanks for the help and tips if I get it working I will put the instructions up for future reference.

[sted]

hang on.. I thought that Windows 7 does support UEFI but only the 64bit version... I also thought that you could purloin this and use it with the 32bit version.

 

I remember this on a tablet install.

 

i "think" it does but the files needed arnt on the pen drive by default you need to get them there somehow or use a dvd

[Michael]

Windows 7 x64 does support UEFI version 2 only. Windows 7 x86 doesn't support any flavour of UEFI, whereas Windows 8 onwards supports UEFI on x86, x64 and ARM.

[foofighterjim]

As it turns out what I thought was a fresh Windows 7 x86 DVD was actually a copy of an RM Win7 recovery DVD. I have downloaded a fresh Win 7 x86 iso from Microsoft and everything is now going as I would expect.

[Michael]

As it turns out what I thought was a fresh Windows 7 x86 DVD was actually a copy of an RM Win7 recovery DVD. I have downloaded a fresh Win 7 x86 iso from Microsoft and everything is now going as I would expect.

 

At least you solved it, that's the main thing!