lenova y410P Can't downgrade to Win7..

Hey, so I am trying to downgrade my y410p to Win7 but the disk partition style won't allow me to.

Here is my Disk setup:

Name - Type -
Disk 0 Part 1: WINRE_DRV OEM(Reserved)
Disk 0 Part 2: SYSTEM_DRV System
Disk 0 Part 3: LRS_ESP OEM(Reserved)
Disk 0 Part 4: MSR (Reserved)
Disk 0 Part 5: Primary (884gb)
Disk 0 Part 6: LENOVA Primary
Disk 0 Part 7 BR_DRV OEM(Reserved)


So, I tried to reformat Part5 because that seems to be the major harddrive, but even after I do that,I get the message "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style."

How do I fix this so I can run win7?

 

Is your windows disk 32bit or 64bit? Either way, you will also want to delete MSR partition regardless.

GPT partition means your system is currently in UEFI mode. 32bit windows cannot support it.

The easiest way to downgrade is delete every partitions and start over. The first thing I do whenever I buy a new laptop is that, deleting all junk partitions and do a clean install.

 

You have to have Win 7 64 bit to support GPT

Since most manufacturers do not provide media and many don't even provide a method to create restoration disks I am careful NOT to completely blow away disks on new systems. Best bet is to put the original drive aside and put it in an external enclosure and take a new drive and install what you want. Just remember 32bit Windows has memory address space limitations that make 8 or 12GB or RAM rather pointless so it's best to go 64bit.

Cheers,

 

Oops, yeah, I forgot about that.

In my case, I just delete everything and throw away drive disks. I don't need those.

Anyway, if his disk is 32bit, he is gonna have to delete the whole disk or, as you suggested, he will need a new hdd.

 

I am trying to install 64bit win7.

 

Then there are three ways.

1. Make a USB boot drive off your win 7 disk. Use Rufus (Google it) and make a windows 7 UEFI boot disk. Do delete your MSR partition during installation phase.

2. Swap your HDD and install afresh.

3. Wipe clean your current HDD and start fresh. You might want to make backup of your windows 8 files and drivers. Drivers should not be an issue even if you don't back them up. They should be readily available on the net. But it's hard to get a hold of windows 8 iso unless you use torrent which I don't favor, so you might want to make sure that you backup files of windows 8 for the future.

 

Alright thanks, got it installed


Only problem is that the screen flickers every 8 seconds.

 

I dont see whats so great about windows 7 that windows 8 doesnt have.

The only thing i could see is XP mode, which sucked compared to Virtualbox anyways.

Its easier to learn w8 than to reinstall your whole OS.

 

I agree with this. I've now setup 4 Windows 8 systems and it really hasn't been a huge learning curve. The most complained about bits from the users I setup were the lack of Start button and more importantly, how different Internet Explorer behaves out of the box.

Cheers,

 

1. Who uses internet explorer?
2. Back on win 7, i always hit the win key to open up the start menu. With windows 8, i just hit win key , then type my search, and it works the same way.
3. The only little hiccup is the well hidden shutdown/restart buttons, so i just made some batch files on my desktop that i can doubleclick to shut down in a snap. With the Caching SSD, i dont need sleep/hibernate since it loads up so fast.
4. Meanwhile, im enjoying better performance, better startup times, a better file browser, better task manager, built-in antivirus (windows defender), better compatiblity with my phone and 5-10% better battery life (tested with an old Inspiron 1525), plus Windows 8 license costs like 4x less than Windows 7

 

Most of the folks I set these systems up for are basic users who never install anything other than what the system came with. MS Office, IE and maybe a game or two and thats it.

I personally prefer Chrome.

Cheers,

 

You need to look from another prospective, and that is those who just want their PC to work without having to learn new things.

Majority of people are already familiar with how windows 7 works because the way windows 7 works is similar to vista, and XP (and below). It is true that Windows 8 can do everything windows 7 can but differently and people in general do not favor such changes.

You can argue this windows 7 vs 8 all you want, but there will be people who will want windows 7 for genuine reasons.

 

I hope you backed up the factory recovery partition, you will need to use the Lenovo Intel and nVidia video drivers to keep it from flickering.

 

Can someone please help me downgrade to Windows 7. Here is where I am at. I changed UEFI settings to disable secure boot, enable legacy support, and changed the optimized windows 8 to 'other OS'. Now, I boot my Windows 7 64 bit disc, and I deleted all of the partitions. Then I formatted, but it still won't let me install the OS. What am I doing wrong? This is driving me crazy....

 

Thank you. In my case, it has nothing to do with familiarity. I find Windows 8 to be relatively simple to learn and use. However I use Windows media center to display on my TV and I don't want to pay another $100 just to get full functionality. I have a retail version of 7 pro that I had installed on my laptop that died and got this one to replace it. Moving 7 over is of no extra cost to me except time and I get what I want. I get a lean fresh system with full WMC functionally at minimal cost.

 

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