Problem downgrading Win 8.1 to Win 7 on HP 19-2113w AIO desktop.

Hello Everyone!

I am having a problem downgrading a clients machine from Windows 8.1 64 bit to Windows 7. It boots off the Windows 7 CD, and gets to the Windows is loading files screen. The progress bar fills up and it switches to the Windows 7 splash screen for a few seconds and then it blue screens with this message, 'the BIOS in this system is not fully ACHI compliant. Please contact your system vendor for and updated BIOS. 0x000000A5.

I have flashed it to the latest BIOS and it has no effect. I have reset the UEFI settings within Windows and disabled UEFI in BIOS while enabling legacy boot. I have done this on several other HP machines for clients and when rebooting after the UEFI reset, just before the HP splash screen I would get a message telling me to enter the 4 digit code and press enter to complete the reset. On this machine, I do not get the code to reset it.

After some googling I found mention of it there being problems boot from the Windows 7 CD. So I prepared a Windows 7 boot flash drive with Rufus and a Windows 7 iso. I change the BIOS setting to boot from the flash drive and I get to the exact same point in the install before it blue screens again.

Has anyone else run into anything like this? I have never had an issue downgrading like this before. Any ideas, suggestions, input, or opinions will be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance!

Respectfully,
George D.

GeoGoGo said:

Hello Everyone!

I am having a problem downgrading a clients machine from Windows 8.1 64 bit to Windows 7. It boots off the Windows 7 CD, and gets to the Windows is loading files screen. The progress bar fills up and it switches to the Windows 7 splash screen for a few seconds and then it blue screens with this message, 'the BIOS in this system is not fully ACHI compliant. Please contact your system vendor for and updated BIOS. 0x000000A5.

I have flashed it to the latest BIOS and it has no effect. I have reset the UEFI settings within Windows and disabled UEFI in BIOS while enabling legacy boot. I have done this on several other HP machines for clients and when rebooting after the UEFI reset, just before the HP splash screen I would get a message telling me to enter the 4 digit code and press enter to complete the reset. On this machine, I do not get the code to reset it.

After some googling I found mention of it there being problems boot from the Windows 7 CD. So I prepared a Windows 7 boot flash drive with Rufus and a Windows 7 iso. I change the BIOS setting to boot from the flash drive and I get to the exact same point in the install before it blue screens again.

Has anyone else run into anything like this? I have never had an issue downgrading like this before. Any ideas, suggestions, input, or opinions will be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance!

Respectfully,
George D.

ACHI is required to boot windows in BIOS. ACHI is not required for EUFI AFAIK.
Since this computer was built for win8.1, it was built for eufi, and achi isn't supported.
This means that you won't be able to install windows 7.

HP is notorious for making it hard to downgrade, unless you choose a business model

Now that you mention it, this is the first consumer grade machine I have tried to downgrade. All the others have been business class. That makes sense now.

Thank you for the information. it is greatly appreciated!

It might upgrade to Windows 10 though! Which I expect would be better than Windows 8.1. I'd check what results other users have had upgrading that model to Windows 10 first, then if there are no driver issues, you can do a clean install of Windows 10. They let you burn the iso to a usb.