Stumped Downgrading Satellite u845-s430 to Windows 7

[BAM pointBLANK]

Hello Everyone,

I am completely at a loss at how to proceed. Installing OS's is not something I am new to, and this should be a fairly simple process. However, the fact that my laptop does not have an optical drive complicated things a bit, but even then, the steps are pretty clear.

I have a working copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit on a CD-ROM, and I used it to successfully install Windows 7 on my MBP using BootCamp. I am confident that the issue is not with my copy of Windows. I have a SanDisk Cruzer Blade Firebird 8GB flash drive, and it is what I will be using to create a bootable flash drive.

The first thing I tried was to format the flash drive using command prompt with the NTFS file system. And used the xcopy command to copy the contents from the CD to the Flash Drive. My BIOS settings are already set with USB as top priority. When I restarted my computer with the USB plugged in, it did not boot from USB.

I then re-formatted the USB drive, and this time used third-party software to create the bootable disk. I use WinToFlash, and copied the contents of the CD to the USB and that did no work either.

Again, I re-formatted the USB drive, and used Rufus instead. This time I created an .ISO image from the CD, and then used Rufus to create the bootable USB from the disk image. Again, I restart my Satellite with the USB in the port, and it does not boot from the USB drive.

Also, I have tried to simply run the "Setup.exe" file on the flash drive, but that gives me an error code 0x80070490, claiming that it cannot find a location to store temporary files, although the USB has plenty of space.

I have been at this since yesterday, and I am starting to lose hope/patience. What can be the problem? Is the USB drive unable to be used as a bootable drive? Is there a problem with my BIOS?

Please, any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[mopman411]

Go here. Download and run. I use this all the time to make bootable USB drives.

http://www.isotousb.com/

Update:

I have downgraded laptops before, when picking a new laptop it was picked because windows 7 drivers were available. The UEFI BIOS had to have a setting set to legacy mode to operate with Windows 7.. I don't remember the exact setting. The most important thing, do you have drivers for the laptop? Is the hard drive setup by the manufacture with a protected partition? If it is then do not delete the partition until you have the tools to remove the protection.. this will also delete the partition and a format will be needed when installing. There is quite a bit involved with a downgrade. Make sure you have all the tools and information before you jump in feet first.

Update 2:

If you choose to proceed with going to windows 7 and you get to the point that windows will not install on a partition you will need to remove the GPT protection. To do this you will need GParted. Making a bootable USB with GParted is easy, the how-to is listed on the site.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

Driver for the laptop that you want to downgrade seem to be space with the manufacture. If you wish to continue the drivers can be found in the link below. At that point you will be on your own. Getting support from the manufacture will be hard. Do a backup before you downgrade.

http://support.toshiba.com/support/modelHome?freeText=3478707

 

[BAM pointBLANK]

Thank you so much for your response.

I will make sure to use that program to re-attempt making a bootable USB. I do recall seeing an option in the BIOS saying something about Legacy, and it is enabled. I have no downloaded the drivers, so I will make sure to do that before proceeding.

The laptop has an SSD for the OS and an HDD for storage. When looking at Disk Management, there are multiple partitions. I am not sure about whether or not they are protected, and to be honest I do not have any experience with GPT partitions .. how difficult is it to deal with that?

Anyway, I will not have time to go into this in detail today, but I will make sure to this post later tonight, or tomorrow when I get the chance.

Again, I really appreciate the help, and hopefully I will be able to figure this out!

 

[mopman411]

I'll update this later, do not proceed at the moment. Win 7 does not natively support USB 3.0.

 

[mopman411]

With what you said I am going to count it same to assume that the bootable USB and the BIOS concerns are taken care of, so jumping to the fun stuff.

This took some searching for software and some thinking. The process that I have identified below will get you around the USB 3.0 issues with Windows 7, this is kind of a drawn out process but it should work well for you.

(keep in mind this entire process relies on you having a second computer, for the purpose of making changes to the USB drive and computer should the first attempt not work. All the instructions that are provided were performed on my laptop to ensure they are as close to 100% correct as possible 😀 )

I recommend copying and printing out these instructions.

1. Download and create a bootable UBCD USB. Use this link, http://www.serverninjas.com/sn/ubcd523.iso, use MagicISO to view the contents of the ISO and extract them to a folder named UBCD. You can get MagicISO here, http://www.magiciso.com/Setup_MagicISO.exe. Move the folder to C:\. Insert your USB drive and note the drive letter that Windows assigns it. Select Start, Run, copy and paste “C:\UBCD\ubcd\tools\win32\ubcd2usb”, hit enter, left shift + right click, select “Open command window here”. In the command window enter “ubcd2usb c:\UBCD x:” (x: should be replaced with the drive letter that Windows assigned to the flash drive. Wait for the command to identify that it has completed.

2. Copy the contents of your Windows install disk to a folder named “Install Files”. Open the USB drive, drag and drop the Install Files folder to the root of the USB drive. Download your laptop drivers from the link I provided earlier, save the drivers into a folder named “Laptop Drivers”, drag and drop the Laptop Drivers folder into the Install Files folder.

3. Boot laptop from USB. The very first screen you see will have a lot of options, scroll down to Parted Magic and hit enter, hit enter again to use the default settings.

4. When Parted Magic fully boot double click on Partition Editor, this will open GParted. Select the partitions that you see and select delete, do this until all the partitions are gone. Select Apply, then select Apply again, then select close. Select in the gray area identified as Unallocated, right select and select New. In the New Size (MiB) box enter “5120”, select the File System box and select NTFS.. 6th from the bottom. The new space is now identified as a white box with a green/blue border and two black arrows, move your curser onto the box, left select and drag it all the way to the right. Hit add, then Apply, Apply and then close. Right select on the partition (the white box all the way to the right in the unallocated space) and select Manage Flags. Tick the box to the left of Boot, then select close. Then close GParted.

5. At the Parted Magic desktop, double select File Manager. In the top menu select Devices, then select your 5GB drive (sda1), then select open. In the top menu select Devices, then select your USB drive (sbd1), then select open. Open the Install Files folder, highlight everything, right click and select copy. Open the tab (tabs are located directly under the top menu) to the left of the currently open one, verify the tab name says “sda1-xxxx”, right click and select paste. The copy may take some time.

6. Close the File Manager and double select Quit from the Parted Magic desktop, select Restart Computer. When your laptop restart pull out the flash drive.

7. Your laptop will now boot to the install. When prompted for the “Type of Install” select Custom. Select Disk 0 Unallocated Space, select Next. Your computer may restart a couple of times, don’t touch your computer while it is doing the install. Let your computer get to the screen where is asks for your name before you touch the computer. Doing the general setup is up to you, you know this part.

8. Once your computer boots into Windows select Start, right select Computer and select Manage. Select Disk Management. Your install partition will be there but it will not have a drive letter assigned. Right select on the 5GB partition and select “Change drive letter and paths”, select Add, then select OK. Select Start, Computer, open the 5GB drive, right select Laptop Drivers, select copy, hit the back button, open the C drive, right select and hit paste. The drivers folder is now copied. For cleanness of the screen when opening Computer, remove the drive letter for the install partition.

You now have two options. Leave the 30 second time out boot screen or remove it, if you want to remove it follow the directions below.

A. Go back into Computer Management, select Disk Management, right select the 5GB partition, select “Change drive letter and paths”, select remove, then select Ok, then Ok. The install partition will remain there and can be used at any time. To get rid of the 30 second time out asking you which partition you want to boot from, select Start, right select Computer, select Properties, select Advanced System Settings, select “Startup and Recovery” Settings, deselect the box to the left of “Time to display list of operating systems”, select Ok, then Ok.

This link is for the Intel USB 3.0 driver. https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=21129