New Laptop

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novice
Posts: 49
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:33 pm

New Laptop

Post by novice »

Hello everyone,

Got a new small (13"screen) Asus laptop the other day with Windows 8.1 pre-installed along with a whole crap of other junk.
I like this machine for it's portability and general performance with one drawback; no optical drive.
I can see why. In order to keep it small there is no room for it. Fair enough.

What I would like to do is wipe the drive and perform a clean install of windows 7.
The single drive (500gig) is EFI with partitions GPT. The bios was set at non-legacy which I changed to legacy thereby enabling to boot MBR installs.
I copied my windows 7 install cd to a usb flash drive and booted into the laptop to the point where it told me I did not have the right drivers to continue.

Does anyone have any experience with this?
Should I have first uninstalled the windows 8.1 and reformatted the drive using BIBM?
If I did that and would not be able to install the windows 7, I'd be stuck.

Any tips welcome,
Thanks
Bernard B
DrTeeth
Posts: 1289
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: New Laptop

Post by DrTeeth »

On Thu, 16 Apr 2015 10:00:48 PDT, just as I was about to take a herb,
novice disturbed my reverie and wrote:

>I copied my windows 7 install cd to a usb flash drive

AIUI that will not work. Try this
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool
--
Cheers,

DrT

** You've never known happiness until you're married;
** but by then it is too late.
mjnelson99
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:24 am

Re: New Laptop

Post by mjnelson99 »

When I got a new Acer, I had looked on their Support site and downloaded
audio, video, networking, camera, etc., drivers before I attempted to
install Win 7 Home Premium.
Win7 did NOT have the Intel networking drivers so I would not have been
able to get online to get the drivers later.

Do look for anything Asus might in their drivers you may need first.

On 4/16/2015 12:00 PM, novice wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> Got a new small (13"screen) Asus laptop the other day with Windows 8.1 pre-installed along with a whole crap of other junk.
> I like this machine for it's portability and general performance with one drawback; no optical drive.
> I can see why. In order to keep it small there is no room for it. Fair enough.
>
> What I would like to do is wipe the drive and perform a clean install of windows 7.
> The single drive (500gig) is EFI with partitions GPT. The bios was set at non-legacy which I changed to legacy thereby enabling to boot MBR installs.
> I copied my windows 7 install cd to a usb flash drive and booted into the laptop to the point where it told me I did not have the right drivers to continue.
>
> Does anyone have any experience with this?
> Should I have first uninstalled the windows 8.1 and reformatted the drive using BIBM?
> If I did that and would not be able to install the windows 7, I'd be stuck.
>
> Any tips welcome,
> Thanks
> Bernard B
>
>
mjnelson99
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:24 am

Re: New Laptop

Post by mjnelson99 »

I also got an external DVD burner on Amazon since most new laptops do
not seem to have optical drives.
It cost in the neighborhood of $35 USD, so not that costly.

On 4/16/2015 7:03 PM, MJNelson wrote:
> When I got a new Acer, I had looked on their Support site and downloaded
> audio, video, networking, camera, etc., drivers before I attempted to
> install Win 7 Home Premium.
> Win7 did NOT have the Intel networking drivers so I would not have been
> able to get online to get the drivers later.
>
> Do look for anything Asus might in their drivers you may need first.
>
> On 4/16/2015 12:00 PM, novice wrote:
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> Got a new small (13"screen) Asus laptop the other day with Windows 8.1 pre-installed along with a whole crap of other junk.
>> I like this machine for it's portability and general performance with one drawback; no optical drive.
>> I can see why. In order to keep it small there is no room for it. Fair enough.
>>
>> What I would like to do is wipe the drive and perform a clean install of windows 7.
>> The single drive (500gig) is EFI with partitions GPT. The bios was set at non-legacy which I changed to legacy thereby enabling to boot MBR installs.
>> I copied my windows 7 install cd to a usb flash drive and booted into the laptop to the point where it told me I did not have the right drivers to continue.
>>
>> Does anyone have any experience with this?
>> Should I have first uninstalled the windows 8.1 and reformatted the drive using BIBM?
>> If I did that and would not be able to install the windows 7, I'd be stuck.
>>
>> Any tips welcome,
>> Thanks
>> Bernard B
>>
>>
>
>
novice
Posts: 49
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:33 pm

Re: New Laptop

Post by novice »

OK, Mary and Drteeth, thanks for your input.
Much appreciated.
Bernard B
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