Removing Win 8 and installing Win 7: Oops!

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Ten days ago I purchased an Acer Travelmate B 113-M. I like it very much, but after struggling for a week with Windows 8, I decided to junk it and install a copy of Windows 7 Professional that I had bought some time ago but never used. So I made an image of the system on an external drive (just in case), downloaded Windows 7 drivers for the machine from the Acer website (http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/drivers), changed the machine from UEFI to Legacy BIOS, made a USB DVD drive the first boot device, installed Windows 7 from the DVD, and updated the drivers using Device Manager. So far, so good. Then I rebooted.

The computer didn’t even get to POST (no beep), but put me right into the boot manager. I selected the hard drive and immediately received the error “No Bootable Device.” Then I plugged in the USB DVD drive with the Windows 7 installation DVD, rebooted, and selected that to boot from. Same result—”No Bootable Device.” Ditto when I tried to boot from the Windows 8 system repair disc I had made before I installed Windows 7.

Acer support would like me to send the machine in for warranty repairs. That’s an option, but I’d prefer to avoid that because I’m leaving on a trip in a week and would like to take the computer along. I can’t imagine it’s a hardware problem, because it worked fine until I made software changes. Could the problem be the BIOS?

I checked the Acer website and found that there are two BIOS files for this machine, a “BIOS – UEFI for Windows 8 (Not for Upgrades),” dated September 23, 2013, and another file labeled simply “BIOS” and dated December 11, 2012. I’m wondering whether the newer BIOS is incompatible with Windows 7 and if I should install the older one.

Does this sound like a good plan? If so, can anyone tell me the procedure? Since Windows won’t load, I can’t run the .exe file (Q1VZC109.exe), but I looked inside it and discovered two .fd files: HM77x64.fd and NM70x64.fd, and I think I do something with those (although I’m not sure which one).

Many thanks for your help. I am not a computer professional, by the way. I know just enough to be dangerous.

Joe

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Joe, Welcome to the Lounge.

I do not have any ideas what could be causing your present problem, but . . . .

While you were testing Win 8, did you add one of the Start Menu replacement apps that would have allowed your Win 8 to look and feel like your familiar Win 7? Just asking because many people that were having problems moving around in Win 8, were able to easily use it once they had installed one of these apps. The 3 most commonly used are:

Classic Shell

Start8

Start is back

Classic Shell is free and the others have very nominal fees to use.

I would use the image to return to Win 8, then try one of these. They will allow you to boot directly to the Desktop and disable the hot corners on the Desktop. This will also let you see if indeed this is a S/W or H/W problem.

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Medico,

I use Classic Shell in Win 7, but I didn’t install it in Win 8 because I figured it was easier just to install Win 7. I have a whole bunch of programs I install, and I have the process streamlined for Win 7, so I can do it quickly. I also didn’t want to deal with whatever bloatware the computer manufacturer had installed for Win 8.

Right now, though, I’m not sure how to use the image for Win 8, as I can’t get the machine to boot from a CD/DVD drive with either Win 7 or Win 8 installed. Is there a way to install it from another machine? I have a wireless network at home, but I didn’t get far enough to put the new machine on it.

Joe

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Is the bios set up to check the optical media before attempting to load the OS? The boot order may not have CD/DVD first.

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Before I ran into trouble, I set the bios to boot first from the DVD/CD drive. Whether it is still that way I can’t tell, because I can’t access the bios. But it’s doing something with that drive, because I can hear it.

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Try tapping the F12 key during boot, maybe F10 or some other key combo depending on system, see if you get a boot menu or something equivalent to choose which device to boot to.

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I suppose it could actually be a hardware failure. Not being able to access the Bios is strange.

This articleshows a possible key combo to access the Bios.

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I tried F1, F2, and F12, which is everything covered in Medico’s link. I haven’t tried F10, but will do so this evening when I get home. Meanwhile, can anyone think of a reason why I shouldn’t try flashing the bios in case it’s corrupt? I figure I haven’t anything to lose, since Acer has already offered to fix the machine under warranty.

Has anyone heard of needing different BIOSes for Win 7 and Win 8?

Thanks again.

Joe

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The Bios can be updated for various reasons. Since you have nothing to loose at this point, I would attempt to flash the bios with the latest available update.

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Last evening I tried pressing F10, with no luck. I also tried flashing the bios, but without success thus far. There are conflicting instructions for that floating around the Internet, and I’m not sure I have the right ones. I’ll try again this evening. I did, though, discover that the correct bios file is HM77x64.fd—it’s named after the chipset in this machine. What I thought was separate downloads for Win 7 and Win 8 turned out to be just older and newer versions of the bios; at least the filenames are the same in both downloads, with only the file dates different.

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If you look on the Acer website, you’ll see instructions for UPgrading to Windows 8, and they include preliminary steps to upgrade the BIOS, the AHCI (hard disk) drivers and network drivers BEFORE the upgrade. That suggests to me that it’s the BIOS and AHCI drivers that are the problem. They don’t talk about DOWNgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 7, but I suspect it may be a one-way ticket. My guess is that your best choice is to send the machine back to Acer and let them clean up the mess.

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Acer has an emergency FN + esc to load the bios (When u push fn + esc and turn on the power button). Google it for more information.

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I did the same downgrade from 8-64 to 7-32 on a Lenovo laptop in May. One of the issues I had that seems similar to yours is the no bootable drive message. When I converted from UEFI to MBR (legacy) I had to totally remove all partitions on the drive including the first small one with the recovery set (now I can’t ever go back to factory setup) – I think UEFI only works for 64-bit versions. I then repartitioned the drive with a 20-25 GB partition for the OS and the rest of the drive for a data partition.

Hope this helps…if not, then I got nothin’.

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I tried the FN + ESC crisis recovery sequence to load the bios, without success. Some Internet posts suggest that the brand of USB drive used to hold the bios file makes a difference. Sandisk is recommended, but I don’t have one. That could have been the problem, or maybe not.

I also deleted all the drive partitions (five of them) during the Win 7 installation process, creating one partition for the entire drive.

At this point, I’m done with trying to fix the machine. I’ve spent far too much time on it already. Since Acer has agreed to repair it under warranty, that’s what I’ll do. Thank you to everyone, though, for all your help. I truly appreciate the expertise I find here in the lounge.

Joe

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I also deleted all the drive partitions (five of them) during the Win 7 installation process, creating one partition for the entire drive.

Joe,

Hello… Late to this but would like to comment… New Win 8 OEM PC’s come with UEFI GPT and some form of “Secure Boot” If you try to install an older OS like “7” (MBR NTFS Image) to the GPT formatted HD …the PC wont boot ( been there …done that)..You can make it boot by getting rid of the two GPT partitions, and reformatting the HD (NTFS)…although these are protected system partitions and are not easily removed. Also it could be that the BIOS security (secure boot) wont let you install anything but a Win 8 OS ( depending on the PC and it’s BIOS security settings ) …Just my 2¢ :cheers: Regards Fred

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I guess I would like to make a quick post too. My view is that there is almost no benefit to downgrading from 8 to 7. Even without installing a Start app, 8 can be made to work better than 7 with very little work: (i) put desktop at the top left of Metro, then you only have to press enter to get to desktop; (ii) pin your main programs to the taskbar, (iii) set up desktop toolbar from which you can launch your other programs, (iv) set up quick launch toolbar for your main apps, (v) add shutdown/restart buttons to your taskbar, (vi) kill (as far as you can) the stupid charms bar. While the last two take a bit of work, the whole exercise takes about 30 minutes, with an adequate guideline. You will (hopefully) find the highly positive features of Windows 8 worthwhile and will almost never have the pain of working with Metro.

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Thanks, jonrichco, for your thoughts. I bought my new ultrabook a week before leaving for London and Bristol, and I wanted to take the new machine with me. I knew there were advantages to Windows 8 (I especially liked the automatic backup management), and so I tried to get it to work. But I had nearly fifty programs to install and tweak, and after spending several hours trying (and failing) to configure just the operating system, I decided I wouldn’t have enough time to figure out Windows 8 and get everything installed before I left.

I had an extra license for Win 7 Pro that I had never used, and I also had a precise, step-by-step list of instructions for installing all my programs and configuring both them and Win 7 exactly the way I like. I reckoned that I could install Win 7 and all my programs in about a day, but I had no clue how long it might take to get Win 8 working. So I was trying to install Win 7 only because of the pressure of time, not because I preferred it.

In the end, I trashed the computer and wasn’t able to take it on the trip anyway. I took an older and bulkier machine instead, which worked perfectly, but my shoulder was aching after several days from carrying it everywhere. But it got the job done.

After returning the from the trip, I decided to try one more thing. I thought if I could plug the hard drive into a docking station, I might be able to use another machine to run Windows Backup and get my system image of Win 8 (the one I had made when I first turned on the machine) back onto it. But when I got the drive out, the end where pins were was covered with a harness, and a flat flex cable led out from that to the computer. I couldn’t get the harness off without ripping out material that was glued to the drive. I feared that doing so would void my warranty, so I elected just to send the whole computer back to the factory. I’m waiting for it now to come back.

Thanks to everyone for your help with this. I didn’t get quite the result I wanted, but I’ve learned a lot in the process, and maybe next time I’ll know what not to do.

Joe

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Hmm .*.*. I’m trying to remember just what I did. I know I disabled secure boot before removing Win 8, and I also searched the Internet regarding the GPT format issue. But I think I came to the conclusion that there wasn’t a good way to switch from GPT to MBR directly in Win 8 (that might be wrong, but that’s what I concluded), but that formatting the drive during the Win 7 installation process would automatically make it MBR. If that is wrong, then the drive is probably still GPT. It did boot once into Win 7, but that was at the end of the installation process, when the computer was still (presumably) under the control of the installation disk.

That wouldn’t explain, though, why I cannot boot from a USB DVD drive (the drive is recognized, but not as bootable). I wish I could spend more time on this, because I’m getting some good ideas; but I’m leaving on a trip in a couple of days and am scrambling to get ready for that. If I have time when I return, perhaps I’ll try a couple of other things, such as installing a completely new hard drive into the machine and seeing if it boots.

Thanks again. And I am still open to other ideas–I just won’t be able to acknowledge them or act on them for the next week or so.

Joe

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And I am still open to other ideas–I just won’t be able to acknowledge them or act on them for the next week or so.

Joe,

Hello… After thinking a bit …what might be the problem

1. When you “wiped” the HD the system “protected” the GPT bits ( first two partitions) so it wasn’t complete .. and GPT remains.

2. Check with a boot time Partition manager like ”G Parted ” to see “whats sup” with the HD

3. It’s possible that you did “wipe” the drive , but left it “Unallocated” . Then it would appear with the message ” no bootable device found” So you would need to make it Primary Active …drive letter etc.

4. If that is the case ..you could then load the “7” disk and you should be good to go…That’s only if the “secure boot security” thing will accept the Win 7 disk.. Worth a try:cheers: Regards Fred

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Joe,

Hello… After thinking a bit …what might be the problem

1. When you “wiped” the HD the system “protected” the GPT bits ( first two partitions) so it wasn’t complete .. and GPT remains.

2. Check with a boot time Partition manager like ”G Parted ” to see “whats sup” with the HD

3. It’s possible that you did “wipe” the drive , but left it “Unallocated” . Then it would appear with the message ” no bootable device found” So you would need to make it Primary Active …drive letter etc.

4. If that is the case ..you could then load the “7” disk and you should be good to go…That’s only if the “secure boot security” thing will accept the Win 7 disk.. Worth a try:cheers: Regards Fred

1. Okay, I can see this.
2. I can try this when I get back from my trip in ten days to two weeks.
3. That’s not something I would normally forget, but I suppose it’s possible. Again, I can check when I return.

Thanks, Fred.

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That wouldn’t explain, though, why I cannot boot from a USB DVD drive

In my Bios here were separate settings in the Boot order for MBR and GPT DVD. Don’t remember the exact terminolgy but it had to be the right one to match the disk format.

Jerry

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I don’t think I had that, although I might have had a choice of internal versus USB DVD. I can’t remember for sure.

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In my Bios here were separate settings in the Boot order for MBR and GPT DVD. Don’t remember the exact terminolgy but it had to be the right one to match the disk format.

I should have quoted this reply so people would know which one I am answering. Anyway, I don’t think I had that, although I might have had a choice of internal versus USB DVD. I can’t remember for sure. Thanks, Jerry.

Joe

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These are basically the same suggestions we have been eluding to since before Win 8 was released. The other item many of us have been suggesting is a 3rd party Start Menu replacement app. There are just a couple of things these add to the table, the best of which, IMO, is the ability to add CP as a menu item. I use this feature all the time.

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