Jump to content

Downgrade the UnDowngradeable!

DogsPaw
By DogsPaw
in Operating Systems
 Share
Posted

Okay, so my grandparents bought a Dell Desktop preloaded with Windows 8. They don't like Windows 8 and are very used to Windows 7 Home Premium.

I used a normal copy of Windows 7 Home Premium and attempted to downgrade. It went through all the steps, but during the "Expanding Files" restart, it was telling me Driver Signatures weren't okay and if I wanted to continue back to Windows 8.

 

I did a little research, and according to more than several places. If you didn't buy it preloaded with Windows 8 Pro/Windows 8.1 Pro. You didn't have Downgrade Rights.

 

So, I thought of the other option that worked in my brain. I took the drive out, used an old drive I already had for testing purposes. Formatted it on my laptop so that it was empty, put that drive into the tower to see if it would ask me for an OS. Instead, it booted past the BIOS and went into Windows 8 Recovery. Before failing saying it couldn't find files located in Sys32. Which obviously it wouldn't have as it didn't exist. Then it went into something which confused me as I had formatted the drive, it was a Toshiba Drive and it had Toshiba Utilities options. 

 

Anyways, after a little tinkering it just booted and told me it couldn't find a boot drive (It did say a drive was installed). So I took it back out and put the old drive back and it booted like normal. When I put the old drive onto my laptop it made the Windows Sound that something connected, but wouldn't do anything beyond that. The drive I don't really care for. I had taken it out to put an SSD in which did ask me for an OEM OS when I installed it. Which is what I was again hoping it'd do on the Desktop.

 

So, LTT, is there a way to downgrade? Or should I just use something like ClassicShell (Installed).

The Only DogsPaw. :)

Link to comment
https://linustechtips.com/topic/269068-downgrade-the-undowngradeable/
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

  1. Any way to get into BIOS on the laptop? Change Boot location to the disk drive

Install windows to the harddrive/ssd using a different host computer. Put the drive into the laptop and repair any driver issues. (This has a pretty slim chance to work)

317 is watching. 317 is everywhere. 317 is life.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

That's what I tried, I took the HDD, plugged it into my laptop with this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1PU0NZ4360&cm_re=Bizlink-_-9SIA1PU0NZ4360-_-Product Formatted the 750GB Drive so it read 688GB free of 688GB on my laptop. Unplugged it, installed it onto the Dell Tower, powered it on and was met with the Windows 8 Layout attempting to repair the computer. When it started doing that, I plugged in my Flash Drive with a copy of Win7 OEM on it, went into the BIOS to boot from the USB first then the HDD and left the ODD, Onboard NIC alone in their boot order. That's when I met the "No Boot Found" Press F1 to retry, or F2 to launch BIOS. 

The Only DogsPaw. :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

I didn't want to install anything from my laptop, I just used it to format the drive. I'm madly in love with my laptop, but it's illegal to marry non-living objects in the State of California. I've taken it apart several times and reapplied thermal compound, swapped the HDD for the SSD and going to swap out the battery for a new one soon. (I'm more into the hardware of it than software). If I want to jack something up, I'd rather jack up this tower. 

The Only DogsPaw. :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

The issue that's happening that's preventing me from going further at this point, is, the HDD I used can be read by my laptop as far as allowing me to safely remove it, and the sounds of it being plugged in, but it won't actually show up on "This PC".

The Only DogsPaw. :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

If you completely delete the partition(s) present on the hard drive inside the W7 installer, what happens? When I say delete the partitions, I mean delete any you find on the drive in the installer. After that, proceed to create a new partition.

"It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out." - Carl Sagan.

"I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you" - Edward I. Koch

"I didn't die! I performed a tactical reset!" - Apollolol

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Also tried off a Disk. That didn't work either. I just don't know where the heck they could put an OS or any thing related to an OS without the HDD. The Drive I put on was formatted. Not a single thing was on it. Plus, it never had Win 8 on it in the first place. Just Win 7 Ultimate.

The Only DogsPaw. :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Also tried off a Disk. That didn't work either. I just don't know where the heck they could put an OS or any thing related to an OS without the HDD. The Drive I put on was formatted. Not a single thing was on it. Plus, it never had Win 8 on it in the first place. Just Win 7 Ultimate.

Something hidden on the computer itself perhaps then in the form of a flash chip.

"It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out." - Carl Sagan.

"I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you" - Edward I. Koch

"I didn't die! I performed a tactical reset!" - Apollolol

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Also tried off a Disk. That didn't work either. I just don't know where the heck they could put an OS or any thing related to an OS without the HDD. The Drive I put on was formatted. Not a single thing was on it. Plus, it never had Win 8 on it in the first place. Just Win 7 Ultimate.

did you go to diskmgmt to set it up as a partition?

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

did you go to diskmgmt to set it up as a partition?

Okay, Drive on my laptop:

120GB SSD Intel 530

 

Drive on the Desktop:

500GB Seagate Drive

 

Drive I used that is now broken:

750GB Toshiba Drive

 

What my goal was, was to just erase the entire drive like I opened it right out of the box, nothing on it. Which is what I assumed is how they're sent, was probably wrong, given it didn't work, I was wrong. There is no going into anything. The Drive isn't being picked up by my laptop, it will recognize something is plugged in and I can safely remove it, but if you go to what's plugged in, nothing displays except my OS Drive and my CD Drive.

The Only DogsPaw. :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

This. This is why I can't trust Dell/PreBuilt computers.

if the drive that came with the computer still has the OS on it, the easiest thing to do would be to install classic shell and that way they never have to go away from the desktop anyways. 

 

pls quote replies so that people get notifications, otherwise we won't see that you replied

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
pls quote replies so that people get notifications, otherwise we won't see that you replied

Unless you follow the topic.

"It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out." - Carl Sagan.

"I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you" - Edward I. Koch

"I didn't die! I performed a tactical reset!" - Apollolol

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

if the drive that came with the computer still has the OS on it, the easiest thing to do would be to install classic shell and that way they never have to go away from the desktop anyways. 

 

pls quote replies so that people get notifications, otherwise we won't see that you replied

 

 

Unless you follow the topic.

 

I replied to both of you, I understand I have to quote for you guys to be notified. 

The Only DogsPaw. :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

if the drive that came with the computer still has the OS on it, the easiest thing to do would be to install classic shell and that way they never have to go away from the desktop anyways. 

 

pls quote replies so that people get notifications, otherwise we won't see that you replied

Yes, it's all set up now with Classic Shell. Since this isn't my computer I wasn't going to put that much effort into making it perfect, this was more if it was actually possible since I kept hitting roadblocks set in place by Dell and Microsoft. At this point in time, I still think it isn't possible to downgrade a pre-built desktop that didn't come with Windows 8/8.1 Pro.

The Only DogsPaw. :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Okay, Drive on my laptop:

120GB SSD Intel 530

 

Drive on the Desktop:

500GB Seagate Drive

 

Drive I used that is now broken:

750GB Toshiba Drive

 

What my goal was, was to just erase the entire drive like I opened it right out of the box, nothing on it. Which is what I assumed is how they're sent, was probably wrong, given it didn't work, I was wrong. There is no going into anything. The Drive isn't being picked up by my laptop, it will recognize something is plugged in and I can safely remove it, but if you go to what's plugged in, nothing displays except my OS Drive and my CD Drive.

you have to go into diskmgmt and see if it's listed there and if there is no partition that is set up it will be black and you need to right click the unspecified partition and create one.

 

you can also try to see if the drive is listed in the device manager

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Yes, it's all set up now with Classic Shell. Since this isn't my computer I wasn't going to put that much effort into making it perfect, this was more if it was actually possible since I kept hitting roadblocks set in place by Dell and Microsoft. At this point in time, I still think it isn't possible to downgrade a pre-built desktop that didn't come with Windows 8/8.1 Pro.

nope only possible to downgrade when win 7 was installed before, but you could simply format the drive and freshly install win 7, but you'd lose data that isn't backed up :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

nope only possible to downgrade when win 7 was installed before, but you could simply format the drive and freshly install win 7, but you'd lose data that isn't backed up :)

He says he's tried that.

"It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out." - Carl Sagan.

"I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you" - Edward I. Koch

"I didn't die! I performed a tactical reset!" - Apollolol

Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

you have to go into diskmgmt and see if it's listed there and if there is no partition that is set up it will be black and you need to right click the unspecified partition and create one.

 

you can also try to see if the drive is listed in the device manager

I'll try this tomorrow after I get off work. I don't really have things saved on these drives. My baby is my Intel 530. I just didn't want to deal with losing the drive that came with the desktop. Reason I removed it and messed with a drive I already had. So yeah, I'll try on that, modify it, and reformat after my computer can recognize it again? Then back to square one of throwing the USB back in and seeing if I can boot into Win 7.

The Only DogsPaw. :)

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Operating Systems

×