Is it actually possible to install W7 on HP Envy 15???

[Hogweed]

Hi – I know this has been covered here before – believe me, I’ve spent a long time reading through the threads I could find – but the solutions offered don’t seem to work for me, so I’ve come here to try and establish once and for all if I can actually get W7 to run on my HP Envy 15-J151sa (AMD chipset).

It came with W10, and I thought I could get used to it, but I absolutely hate it… so much I’ve gone back to using my old, slow W7 laptop, which at least works properly. W10 seems inherently unstable, frequently freezing, taking forever to scroll web pages, restarting itself when the computer is “asleep”, losing your work etc. It's a nightmare.

Anyway, I prepared a W7 installation DVD and USB stick, and changed the BIOS settings to allow the laptop to boot from them – no problem, I get to the point where I choose my regional settings, then hit the “Install Now” button… and get the dreaded message about a DVD driver being missing, and can get no further.

The suggestions about moving the USB stick to a different port etc simply don’t work for me – I’ve tried and tried. I don’t really know if this error message means what it says… I’ve tried to find AMD chipset SATA/AHCI drivers, in case that’s the problem… I’ve found a few, and it briefly looked hopeful, but then I got a message saying it couldn’t install them, and that I should look for a different version or something.

AMD/Microsoft have been unhelpful; HP told me I shouldn't be trying to install W7 on a W10 machine, and that no drivers were available.

Am I flogging a dead horse here? If it’s impossible, I’d sooner avoid wasting any more time!

Thanks for reading this far, if you're still awake…

 

[mrjimphelps]

You could try using an external DVD drive to do the install. The only drivers involved there would be USB drivers. As long as USB is working, it should (hopefully) work.

Any of these should work:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_7_14?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=external+dvd+drive+for+laptop&sprefix=external+dvd+d%2Caps%2CNaN&crid=29C7GVORF6LC1

Hopefully your computer hasn't been blocked from allowing Windows 7.

If you absolutely can't get Windows 7 installed, have you considered Linux Mint? The xfce version of Linux Mint is a lot like Windows 7 (although not exactly), and so there's not a big learning curve. Since you are switching OSs, you might want to take this opportunity to try out Linux Mint.

 

[torchwood]

Hi Hogweed,

Not my area but for starters
You are going to have to inject drivers into the pre-setup
USB3 and DVD
have a read
Create a Windows 7 USB flash installation with new drives for new MB's - Windows 7 Help Forums

note your W10 product key will still be valid in the future but you will need a new one for W7
(Dont buy it of the net)


As for your old slow W7 lappy,
run
diskcleanup (inbuilt, if youve not done it before be prepaired for a half hour slog on your next shutdown/startup)
KB947821
remove unused programs
use a lighter AV.


Roy

 

[mrjimphelps]

On your old laptop, go into the power settings / advanced, and make sure everything is set to let the laptop stay on all the time, i.e. never sleep or hibernate.

As for it browsing slow, install Firefox and Opera. In Firefox, install the extension "NoScript Security Suite". When you surf, allow only those scripts which are needed. You'll surf a lot faster in Firefox; and if there's a site which simply won't work with FF / NoScript, use Opera with ad-blocking enabled.

 

[Megahertz07]

Welcome to the Forum.

Fist of all, you should make the factory recover disks. If something goes wrong you'll be able to restore Win 10 as it came from HP. You can launch the application from win 10 or from BIOS. HP Notebook PCs - Using System Recovery, Factory Reset and Minimized Image Recovery Options | HP® Customer Support


The best solution is to replace the HDD with a SSD drive. You will keep the HDD intact and try to install win 7 on the SSD. If don't succeed, you can install win 10 on the SSD.
Anyway with the OS on a SSD you can put the HDD on a USB 3 case to use it as data storage and for backups.

BIOS
- First of all, update your new MB BIOS.
- Configure the BIOS and set Storage Boot and PCI device to UEFI and XHCI Hand off to enable.
- Disable Secure Boot. It may be as Operating System (OS) = Other and / or CSM = Enable
- Disable Fast Boot. Fast boot disable USB ports and other hardware till OS is booted. You can enable it after Windows is installed.


Backup ALL your data. A Clean install will format ALL partitions on the disk.
It's important to delete ALL partitions.
Clean Install Windows 7 - Windows 7 Help Forums

Your computer doesn't have USB 2.0, only USB 3.X. Windows 7 installation disk doesn't have USB 3.X drivers. You have to add them to the installation disk.

The Win 7 64 drivers for the AMD A76M FCH chipset:
Chipset


Execute the amd-chipset-drivers.exe. It will extract the files to C:\AMD\AMD-Chipset-Drivers.

Under C:\AMD\AMD-Chipset-Drivers\Packages\Drivers\SBDrv\USB30_ZP you will find the USB 3.0 drivers.
The *.inf, *.cat and *.sys are the files you going to add to the installation disk.

Use my tutorial to add the drivers to the Win 7 installation disk Create a Windows 7 USB flash installation with new drives for new MB's - Windows 7 Help Forums

You can also try
Download Windows 7* USB 3.0 Creator Utility

 

[Hogweed]

First of all guys, I’m overwhelmed by your responses – thanks so much for going to all that trouble. I’m working through what you’ve all said… I didn’t put everything in my OP, as it might have run on for pages… regarding the DVD drive, I did start with that – when it failed, I decided to create a USB stick.

It always fails at exactly the same point, and that’s using USB DVD with various different W7 disks, so I don’t think it’s a problem with the disks… and it fails at exactly the same point with the stick too.

I’ve tried using Linux in the past, but it doesn't run all the nice little utilities I’m very attached to (eg paint.net) or I’d seriously consider it…

I removed my original HDD with W10 and all my stuff on it, and attempting to install W7 on a brand new disk, so no worries about backing up etc – if it all goes permanently pear-shaped, I’ll simply put my original HDD back in and carry on as before.

I haven't got a W10 key – the laptop came with W10 as new, but there isn't a COA sticker anywhere. It has a recovery partition, but I guess if you lose that, you're screwed…

The old laptop’s fine, it's just old. And I do use only Firefox

OK, on to the hard stuff:

Configure the BIOS and set Storage Boot and PCI device to UEFI and XHCI Hand off to enable.

No XHCI or AHCI options available in this BIOS, sadly.

Disable Secure Boot

Already done, yep.

Disable Fast Boot

Will do if available – didn’t know what that meant!

It's important to delete ALL partitions.

Yup

Your computer doesn't have USB 2.0, only USB 3.X.

Seriously?? The spec says 2 x 3.0 (blue), 2 x 2.0 (black). I was only using the black ones…

The Win 7 64 drivers for the AMD A76M FCH chipset:
Chipset

Execute the amd-chipset-drivers.exe. It will extract the files to C:\AMD\AMD-Chipset-Drivers.

Under C:\AMD\AMD-Chipset-Drivers\Packages\Drivers\SBDrv\USB30_ZP you will find the USB 3.0 drivers.
The *.inf, *.cat and *.sys are the files you going to add to the installation disk.

Use my tutorial to add the drivers to the Win 7 installation disk Create a Windows 7 USB flash installation with new drives for new MB's - Windows 7 Help Forums

You can also try
Download Windows 7* USB 3.0 Creator Utility

Thanks – that’s my Tuesday evening taken care of Will report back…

 

[Megahertz07]

The HP site says that you have 4 USB 3.0, no USB 2.0. HP ENVY 15-j151sa Notebook PC Product Specifications | HP® Customer Support
.
Do you also have a CD / DVD drive?
If you're able to boot a Win 7 installation disk on USB flash drive and if you have mouse, copy the expanded C:\AMD\AMD-Chipset-Drivers folder to a flash drive and load the drivers from it.
You probably have a UEFI BIOS so boot the installation disk as UEFI. (during POST, launch the boot menu and choose to boot the DVD or Flash disk as UEFI)

 

[Hogweed]

The HP site says that you have 4 USB 3.0, no USB 2.0. HP ENVY 15-j151sa Notebook PC Product Specifications | HP® Customer Support

Wow. When I bought it, I was told 2 x 3, 2 x 2. Thanks for that!

Do you also have a CD / DVD drive?

Sadly, no, just my external USB one.

If you're able to boot a Win 7 installation disk on USB flash drive and if you have mouse, copy the expanded C:\AMD\AMD-Chipset-Drivers folder to a flash drive and load the drivers from it.

Well… what I actually did was to take the HDD out, put it on a USB adapter, and copy all the AMD drivers to the HDD, then put it back in the target machine. When the W7 installation throws the error message, I can browse to the USB3 drivers from that AMD chipset lot, but then it says they aren’t the right ones, and won't install them

And you're quite right, the problem is that it can’t see the USB stick – just the HDD and X:, which I guess is some kind of temporary RAM drive? So if I manage to get a DOS prompt up by selecting “Repair Your Computer”, I can see C: and X: - but X: isn't the stick.

I feel like I’m so close, but…

 

[Hogweed]

OK, here’s what I’ve done. I should point out that I’m an extremely lazy person, and your method was just too difficult for me to get my poor, old, tired brain around.

So… I put my new disk into my old laptop, and ran the W7 setup off the internal DVD drive in it. When it had finished expanding files etc, and restarted, I took the disk out and put it back into the target machine. It has now completed the basic W7 installation successfully

Unfortunately, every single device in Device Manager is “unknown”, so I still have some work to do… sigh… but hopefully that chipset driver set you pointed me at will get me started…

Will report back

 

[Hogweed]

Hhmmm, managed to get the wifi up, so can access the net, but very little else is working.

When I try to install the AMD chipset utility, it crashes... trying to put SP1 on it now in case that helps for some odd reason :sarc:

 

[Megahertz07]

Well done. You're almost there.
Just for your information, when you boot from the installation disk, the Windows PE that runs the installation wizard runs on disk X:
Now that you're running Win 7, open device manager and right click on a missing driver. When it ask where to look for, point to the folder with the chipset drivers and see if it finds it.

 

[Hogweed]

Thanks. I tried that with Device Manager (screenshot attached), but disappointingly, it refused to find anything.

When I tried to run the chipset install, it always crashed - then I applied SP1 etc and it worked, so now I have SATA, and... finally... USB!!!

Still not finding drivers for the other devices though, except the Radeon graphics chip - think I've located that one, but it takes forever...

 

[Megahertz07]

What brand of Win 7 you have (home, HP, Pro or Ultimate)? I can send you a iso (with sp1) link (from M$) so you can download it.
Did you install the LAN or WiFi driver?

 

[Hogweed]

Thanks, it's Pro 64. That'd be useful... still looking for those damn drivers though, especially the one which lights up the keyboard - it's dark in here!

 

[Megahertz07]

Have a look Solved: Windows 7 on HP Pavilion 15 n038sa - HP Support Forum - 3719776

Is for a HP with same chipset.

The link for Win 7 Pro 64. The link is valid for 24 hours
https://software-download.microsoft.com/pr/Win7_Pro_SP1_English_x64.iso?t=c4dc08af-a6e4-46ad-84e9-b4e45c525013&e=1505941259&h=d2bcd4cf2915436354fe34c7ba5587ba

 

[Hogweed]

Yeah... I found that link when I first started all this.

Unfortunately, the first item he refers to (the chipset) isn't on the target website any more...

 

[enxio27]

For future reference, do yourself a favor and make sure you are installing using Win7 with SP1 (Megahertz' link above). That has the USB3 drivers built into it. I found that one out the hard way, after beating my head against a brick wall for several weeks of trying to install Win7 on my mother's laptop that came with Win8. I finally found my answer in one of the threads here. Installation was a breeze after that (although I had to add SP1 to the install disks myself at that time).

 

[Megahertz07]

To find a driver:
- Open device manager and right click on the missing driver - Properties = Details tab - Harware Id's
Put the mouse on the bigest string and copy it. It's something like PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2822&SUBSYS_B0051458&REV_31
Serch the web for the driver.

 

[Hogweed]

For future reference, do yourself a favor and make sure you are installing using Win7 with SP1 (Megahertz' link above). That has the USB3 drivers built into it. I found that one out the hard way, after beating my head against a brick wall for several weeks of trying to install Win7 on my mother's laptop that came with Win8. I finally found my answer in one of the threads here. Installation was a breeze after that (although I had to add SP1 to the install disks myself at that time).

Thanks, will do

 

[Hogweed]

OK time for bed - 00:53 here in the UK, and I've been working on this solidly for 2 days now. Still have a few left... can NOT get the graphics working properly, despite having tried every version I can find on the AMD website, and Googling the hardware ID etc.

Maybe tomorrow... sigh...