Install Win7 as Dual-Boot on Existing Win8 Laptop

TheJoker

New Member
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I have a question on the best way to install Windows 7 as a dual boot on an existing Windows 8 installation on a new Asus Laptop. Most of the tutorials I've seen assume the pre-existing installation is Windows 7, and say that Windows 7 needs to be installed first, not an option when your Win8 comes pre-installed.

I have an Asus F75, and here is the partitioning:
1. 300 MB EFI System Partition, FAT32
2. 900 MB NTFS Recovery Partition (would seem to be the MS Reserved partition, is that correct?)
3. 279 GB NTFS OS Partition
4. 398 GB NTFS Data Partition
5. 20 GB NTFS Recovery Partition

It sounds like after installing Windows 7, the boot menu will be the Win7 text boot selection menu if you use that as the default OS, which is what I plan on doing, so I believe there isn't anything I need to do to that, is that correct?

I have turned of Fast Boot in Win8, and disabled Secure Boot in the system BIOS.

What should I do about the existing Data partition, which will be the Win7 partition. Should I:
a. Leave that intact and simply install Win7 to it, or
b. Delete the partition, install Win7 and allow the install to manage the unallocated space?

Do I have any other considerations other than collecting all the Win 7 drivers for the laptop (which I have already done)?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7, Win8
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus F75
    CPU
    i5
    Motherboard
    Asus
    Memory
    6GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia GT 610M
    Antivirus
    Kaspersky
Note   Note

When dual booting with Windows 8 Preinstalled & Windows 7

Follow Step one to five in this tutorial:
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/13326-downgrade-windows-8-windows-7-a.html
Warning you must have the uEFI/BIOS firmware setting in Step Three set.

Make sure you read the NOTE at Step three.


Than follow this tutorial: (installing in uEFI mode.)
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2344-dual-boot-installation-windows-8-windows-7-vista.html




For Ref:
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with - Windows 7 Help Forums
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
Thanks theog.

I finally figured out how to get to the boot menu for the BIOS on this Asus F75, it was the ESC key, not F8 like Asus desktop motherboards, and am good to go on steps 1 - 5 in this tutorial:
Downgrade Windows 8 to Windows 7

But I have a question on this one, Dual Boot Installation - Windows 8 and Windows 7 or Vista, as the tutorial was actually written for installing Windows 8 as dual-boot with Windows 7 as the pre-installed verson, not the other way around.

For step 6, To Install Windows 8 from within Windows 7 or Vista to Dual Boot, I had not heard of starting the install this way from within Windows, running setup from the sources folder. Will this also work the other way around, for installing Windows 7 from within Windows 8?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7, Win8
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus F75
    CPU
    i5
    Motherboard
    Asus
    Memory
    6GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia GT 610M
    Antivirus
    Kaspersky
For step 6, To Install Windows 8 from within Windows 7 or Vista to Dual Boot, I had not heard of starting the install this way from within Windows, running setup from the sources folder. Will this also work the other way around, for installing Windows 7 from within Windows 8?

YES, If you have step 1 to 5 OK.
or
just boot Windows 7 x64 DVD in UEFI mode.

Windows 8 Downgrade-006 SB for posting.PNG
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
Thanks. Backing up now before installing the dual boot.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7, Win8
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus F75
    CPU
    i5
    Motherboard
    Asus
    Memory
    6GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia GT 610M
    Antivirus
    Kaspersky
Nice to have someone that backs up. :dinesh:
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
Backups seems to be useless, and I'm stuck on attempting repairs.

Using Paragon Partition Manager 2013 Free (listed as Win8 compatible) I adjusted the size of the data partition to make it smaller, and lowered the size of the OS partition, and was going to install Win7 on the unallocated space, but at the end of shrinking the OS partition, it said there were minor inconsistencies. I ran chkdsk, and the system stuck in attempting repairs.

I've tried recovering with both the Recovery partition and the Recovery USB media that I created, and both attempts failed, saying a required partition was not present.

After booting with the Acronis recovery disc, both the OS and Data partitions were gone. I recovered the OS partition with Acronis 2014, which was supposedly successful, but still stuck in "attempting Repairs", and can't get past that to boot. The backup images (full disk image) are on a NAS which is accessible after booting from the Acronis recovery disc.

Any suggestions?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7, Win8
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus F75
    CPU
    i5
    Motherboard
    Asus
    Memory
    6GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia GT 610M
    Antivirus
    Kaspersky
Wait....it may have finally fixed, but have to go out and check when I get back.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7, Win8
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus F75
    CPU
    i5
    Motherboard
    Asus
    Memory
    6GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia GT 610M
    Antivirus
    Kaspersky

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
But sounds like you maybe using the Windows 7 version of Acronis.
Actually, it's the newly released Acronis True Image 2014.

What happened after the restore is that it goes to diagnosing, then attempting repairs, and it finally boots, and I end up with 2 extra small partitions at the end of the drive just before the Restore partition. I've tried this twice, and it's repeatable. Even though I added the Safe boot options before the backup, they are gone.

Got to where I would start to install Windows 7, and it stalled at the first screen booting from the DVD. Trying to run setup from the Sources folder, if I tried to get updates (step 6E in the tutorial), it failed immediately, but without that, the install starts, it rebooted twice, and now seems stalled on a Starting Windows screen. I'll give it another 45 minutes or so, and force a restart and see if it will continue. (i5 2.6 GHz processor with 6 GB RAM, so it's shouldn't be REAL slow).
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7, Win8
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus F75
    CPU
    i5
    Motherboard
    Asus
    Memory
    6GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia GT 610M
    Antivirus
    Kaspersky
Also crashes on trying to load Safe mode, right after loading classpnp.sys.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7, Win8
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus F75
    CPU
    i5
    Motherboard
    Asus
    Memory
    6GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia GT 610M
    Antivirus
    Kaspersky
But sounds like you maybe using the Windows 7 version of Acronis.
Actually, it's the newly released Acronis True Image 2014.

What happened after the restore is that it goes to diagnosing, then attempting repairs, and it finally boots, and I end up with 2 extra small partitions at the end of the drive just before the Restore partition. I've tried this twice, and it's repeatable. Even though I added the Safe boot options before the backup, they are gone.

Got to where I would start to install Windows 7, and it stalled at the first screen booting from the DVD. Trying to run setup from the Sources folder, if I tried to get updates (step 6E in the tutorial), it failed immediately, but without that, the install starts, it rebooted twice, and now seems stalled on a Starting Windows screen. I'll give it another 45 minutes or so, and force a restart and see if it will continue. (i5 2.6 GHz processor with 6 GB RAM, so it's shouldn't be REAL slow).

You need to have Windows 8 working before daul booting with Windows 7.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
This may not be the actual problem being discussed, but is seems to be an ongoing problem where folks think they have turned of Secure Boot by just selecting that option. I would feel much better if they stated they had enabled the CSM, which is what has to be done to get a Windows 7 DVD to load past the 4 orbs.

One of the reasons I don't like using third party Imaging software is that it does add devices and/or other methods to your system so it can do its job. I was glad to see the RTM still has the Windows version included.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Grown
    CPU
    i7 3770K
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77 -v Pro, Z87-Expert
    Memory
    16 G
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA GTX 680 Classified (2)
    Hard Drives
    Kingston SSD 240 GB
I thought I had that set properly, but apparently not, as that solved the install problem. Thanks very much. Now for massive numbers of updates. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7, Win8
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus F75
    CPU
    i5
    Motherboard
    Asus
    Memory
    6GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia GT 610M
    Antivirus
    Kaspersky
I agree with saltgrass regarding 3rd party imaging solutions. Windows 8 must be the most unfriendly version yet!

Windows has its own imaging system, and Shawn Brink has written several related tutorials - start with:
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/3610-refresh-windows-8-create-use-custom-recovery-image.html

Another way to use Windows to image your system is to use the Windows 8 version of DISM (Deployment and Image Servicing Management tool) to capture an image of your c:\drive as a .wim (Windows Image Format file), and also use DISM to apply it to a formatted volume. Here's Technet articles describing how:

Capture Images of Hard Disk Partitions Using DISM
Apply Images Using DISM

the syntax from an elevated or Windows PE cmd prompt is not particularly complex:


Code:
Dism /Capture-Image /ImageFile:c:\my-windows-partition.wim /CaptureDir:C:\ /Name:"My Windows partition"

and

Code:
Dism /apply-image /imagefile:N:\Images\my-windows-partition.wim /index:1 /ApplyDir:W:\

(where the sources and target paths are your own choice)

You can then recreate the BCD store using bcdboot.

Links to other MS articles etc., here:
http://www.eightforums.com/installa...ustom-install-wim-windows-8-a.html#post202305

Windows 8 (not RT) will boot virtual hard disks (.vhd files) natively - including Windows 7, as long as they are Enterprise or Ultimate editions. They are much easier to manage than partitions for dual booting, since they are virtual image files already. Vhds can also be installed to from the sources\install.wim file on the Windows 7 setup disk or USB, or from copies of the install.wim file on hard disk for the fastest installation time, using the DISM /apply-image technique.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2393-windows-8-vhd-create-boot-dual-boot.html
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP COMPAQ Presario CQ57
    CPU
    AMD E- 300 APU with Radion HD Graphics 1.30GHz
    Motherboard
    inbuilt
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI
    Sound Card
    High Definition Audio on-board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    notebook
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate ST9500325AS
    Google drive 15GB
    Skydrive 25GB
    BT Cloud
    PSU
    external 20v
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    pretty good
    Keyboard
    inbuilt
    Mouse
    touchpad
    Internet Speed
    BT Infinity Unlimited - 80 up 20 down =70/16 really
    Browser
    Chrome Canary usually
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Malwarebytes
    Other Info
    no Start menu modifications
    Upgraded with no issues to 8.0 and to 8.1
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