Toshiba Portege r700 clean install

So, like many proud new owners of Toshiba's r700 Portege, I was quite annoyed with the surplus of crapware that came pre-installed, and wanted to get the most out of my new toy. It all went down this evening without a hitch, and I'm happy to say that the computer indeed seems much happier. Even if you don't have any complaints, this is a fun exercise that will help you to get to know your computer better. Beware that there are lots of things that I consider "crapware" that others may not. I didn't want the fingerprint reader, the "zoom" hotkeys, or pretty much anything else Toshiba-branded except the Eco Utility, which I find handy, despite not being able to customize it. So here is what I did:



1: Preparing to Install

First, I downloaded a full ISO image of Windows 7 Professional x64 from Digital River, as described in this post under the heading "ISO Method". Using UltraISO, I burned the ISO file to a blank DVD. Most disk image utilities (e.g., PowerISO, UltraISO) make this really easy -- with such a utility installed on your system, you can usually just right-click on the ISO file and choose "Burn to Disc". In fact (and please correct me if I'm wrong) I believe such an ability is built into Windows 7.

Next, I downloaded all of the drivers that weren't obviously garbage from the Toshiba support website. Click on "Download", then identify your Portege model. Make sure you specify the operating system "Windows 7 64-bit" at the top of the list of drivers so that you only see the ones for your operating system. The drivers I used are listed in the third step, below. You will notice that the support page has some inexplicably stupid design flaws, such as repeatedly listing certain drivers (such as the display driver). Don't worry -- they are the same version on every page, and hopefully they are all up-to-date. Make sure you don't confuse the display driver with the Intel Wireless Display driver. If you want to use wireless display, you'll need both. You will notice that the actual files you download have meaningless filenames. Consider getting out a pen and paper and writing down the last four characters of each filename ("blahblahblah.exe") alongside a brief description. You'll need this list to install them in the correct order, following my list in step three.

For a backup plan in case I screwed things up, I made a complete backup of my C drive using Acronis True Image 10. Then, to make transfer of personal files easier, I copied everything of personal value (just the user libraries, really) to an external drive, along with the backup of the C drive and the drivers I had downloaded. ( Note that, if you are following this guide to upgrade to a new hard drive, you can actually just shut down and swap the hard drives instead of copying anything. At the beginning of step three, below, simply re-connect the original drive externally via USB and copy your user files back over).

With everything kept safely aside (recovery partition be damned), I forged ahead with the installation:



2: Install Windows 7 Pro x64

This is the easy part. With the Windows 7 CD in your CD drive, restart your computer. When it is first starting up, enter the bios (by holding the F2 key, I believe), then go in and set the order of boot devices so that "USB optical drive" is first. Choose to "Save and Exit", the computer should reboot, and Windows installation should begin.

Shortly after you accept the end-user licence agreement, you have the option to go into advanced disc options, where you can delete, create, and expand partitions. After a lifetime of dorking around with multiple partitions for OS, data, and the like, I have settled on having a single, giant "C" partition for the whole show. It seems that Windows 7 is designed for this kind of setup, so I stuck with it. If I decide to create another partition for dual-booting, I can deal with it later.

Note that, once Windows is installing, it takes a little while for the "Expanding Windows files" to jump from 0% to 5%. Do not be alarmed.

From here, Windows installation should be self-explanatory. Copy your product key in from the sticker on the bottom of the computer when prompted, and finish up the installation according to your personal preferences.



3: Install Drivers

Attach your external drive, copy all your files back to the computer, and begin installing the drivers. To be safe, allow the installers to restart the computer each time, if prompted. I want to emphasize here that this process is easy. All of the files you get from the Toshiba Support page are executable files -- you double-click on them and they do all the work for you. You may be asked some questions along the way, but any user should have no problem. These are the drivers I downloaded and actually ended up using, numbered in the order in which I installed them:

01 Chipset
02 Toshiba Value Added Package (beware! I only installed the following components)
> Button Support (enables the non-key buttons around the keyboard)
> Components Common Driver (required for this package to work)
> Flash Cards (this is the hotkey utility, which allows you to use the fn-key combinations)
> Password Utility (enables password-protection of the BIOS)
03 Display Driver
04 Synaptics Touchpad (enables Synaptics-hosted tapping and multitouch functionality)
05 Realtek Audio
06 Wireless Lan (Intel)
07 Bluetooth Stack (required for bluetooth)
08 Lan (Intel)
09 Intel Rapid Storage (improves performance if you upgrade your HDD to an SSD, which you should!)
10 Eco Utility (Toshiba's own power-saving mode)
11 Intel Wireless Display (only useful if you have the Netgear PTV1000, for cloning/extending your desktop wirelessly to a TV)
12 USB 3.0 (this is probably just a driver for the dock/port-replicator, but may be useful with an expresscard USB 3 adapter like this one)
13 USB-Serial (improves compatibility with USB devices)
14 SD Reader (driver for the built-in SD card slot)
15 Intel AMT Software (related to network administration, apparently. Read more about it here).

( Note: I installed Item 15 (Intel AMT) after many days of already-happy computing, and I'm still not totally sure what it's good for. But it did clear up a device alert (for "PCI Simple Communications Controller") in the device manager, so many thanks to Jamshil for pointing it out. Beware that the AMT installation package includes a prompt to install the optional "Intel Control Center" -- I did not opt for this software, and it is not an essential part of the package. When I'm doing a clean install, I'm not interested in unnecessary utilities for software whose purpose I still don't understand.)

Items I downloaded but decided not to install (because things were working):
> Disc Creator Utility
> Wireless Lan (Atheros)
> Wireless Lan (Broadcomm)
> Wireless Lan (Realtek)


For those interested in using Intel Wireless Display, there is one more thing you'll have to do. Go to the Intel download search page and locate the Intel® PROSet/Wireless Advanced Enterprise Software for Windows 7 64-Bit. Download and install it, and after a restart, you should be able to use the WiDi button (next to the Eco Mode button) to turn on WiDi. Until I did this, I was getting an error as the Wireless Display software loaded up -- that it was unable to locate "my wifi technology dll". This problem is apparently caused by a Windows update, so you should wait until you've gotten all your updates before you apply this repair.

I hope this guide is helpful. Feedback is welcome, and any valuable suggestions will be added to this first post.

 

Thanks Outnumbered...you have been Repped.
These are great instructions and really appreciated. I've been considering going through this process and this information will really help. If other folks decide to participate it would be nice to have a complete list of items that can be downloaded from the Toshiba site and a description of what they are used for. Your list is a great place to start from but as you said some folks will want things that others consider crapware.

Thanks again for an excellent overview.

 

Yes excellent review. Just wish I knew enough about computers to do the whole process! I am learning though. Just bought the R705...

 

Based on your concerns, I have updated the instructions a little to clarify how simple this process is. The drivers are all executable files, and Windows installation is designed for all levels of users, so the only interesting part is step 1. Because everybody's files are organized differently, I can't really give exact instructions on backing up your personal files, but you can probably find most of your precious things in your user libraries and on your desktop. As for downloading the drivers, I've added to my instructions that one should write a list of the downloaded files and note what they are. My descriptions of the drivers in step 3 are sufficient to help you locate them in the list on the support website.

The only other required step is burning the Windows ISO image to a blank DVD. Most disk image utilities (e.g., PowerISO, MagicISO) make this really easy -- with such a utility installed on your system, you can usually just right-click on the ISO file and choose "Burn to Disc".

I hope this encourages you to try it out. The steps that are new to you will be easy to figure out, and you'll learn a lot in the process. Good luck!

 

I just cleaned out last night. I'm not sure whether the new install or the latest BIOS 1.60 update did it, but I seem to get either slightly less battery life or more erratic estimates. Should I be worried if calibrating the battery doesn't clear it up?

 

I haven't tried updating the BIOS myself, so I can't say. I'm still waiting to hear whether it cures CPU whine. But my general impression is that BIOS updates are pretty thoroughly checked before they are released. You might want to ask your question in the owners' thread.

 

This is the Intel AMT Software.

I know, i also thought i could skip this. but i don't want an uninstalled resource affecting my system performance.

Question: is there a way to re-enroll for the fingerprint utility. i had enrolled once on my OEM setup. i forgot to backup the the fingerprint data. now when i try to re-enroll and save the settings it gives error "Operation failed. duplicate template already exist." Any simple solutions for this?

 

Hey brother, many thanks for pointing this out. I have updated the first post to reflect your input and the results I got.

As to your question, you're probably well aware that I'm not the person to ask about the fingerprint software, but somebody on the Toshiba support forum has recently asked your question. The community there includes people on the inside who might one day provide your answer.

[EDIT: sorry, no, that was just somebody with poor English. I think they're asking about something else. Still, that forum might be the place to look. For example, here, here, and here. Best of luck!]

 

Alright, so i figured this out. I had to go back and delete the fingerprint profile before i could re-enroll on the new Windows installation. Thankfully i had an image of that windows setup.
This could have potentially been a very costly mistake for me had I not taken an image then.

 

Please Delete

 

no problems activating new install with the oem key?

 

Used ABR utility ( http://directedge.us/content/abr-beta-with-windows-7-support) to backup OEM activation (German) and then installed Windows Home Premium x64 English to SSD, and restored activation. Seems to work, despite language change. This is very contrary to many opinions that I have seen online, that in order to change your language, you need to buy Ultimate.

 

I'm glad this worked out for you. Regarding activation, the OEM key printed on the sticker on the bottom of your machine will get you through the Windows install. After that, within a couple days, Windows will ask you to go through telephone verification. It's an annoying but simple process that takes about 5 minutes.

Best of luck with your clean install!

 

after 2 weeks of clean install with different language, my windows activation is still ok

 

I just went through this process yesterday on my daughter's new R700.
Worked like a charm, thanks to you ,and to v3loc1ty2.0 for the excellent
make-your-own-windows-installation-dvd thread.

I installed fewer drivers than you, the bare minimum (and I didn't have
Intel wireless, some other company I'd never heard of) so others should
check that out first). I thought the eco utility would be a good idea but it
refused to install. Is it dependent on some other software ?

One important thing, if anyone is doing this on a Canadian Tecra R700,
the bios on the website, version 1.7 (I have 1.5), is not the right file and
it fails on installation saying that the computer is not supported. I talked
to Toshiba and they said they were aware of the problem and are working
on it. Maybe I can get it off the US site, I haven't looked yet.