Windows 7 on B550 With Ryzen 5 CPU

Cranium · 30 Apr 2022

Hi,

I will try to keep this brief. Basically, my old motherboard and CPU have died. I am looking to replace them with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor and the MSI B550-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard. My main drive is using Windows 7 Ultimate x64. My understanding from browsing this forum and others is that once I install my motherboard and CPU I might not be able to boot into Windows 7.

I have not bought these parts yet, but am wondering if I will have this problem and how, and if, I can fix it in advance. I don't mind upgrading to Windows 10 at this point, as much as I love Windows 7. I can't afford to lose the data on my main drive though. I don't have a secondary PC I can use or anything like that to back up the data and then clean install, so I need to at least be able to log in and perform backups.

Sorry, I am confused and a little overwhelmed by all the content here and don't want to make a mistake. Would I need Canonkings drivers? Or do I run files to alter a Windows 7 installation .iso? Where do I start?

Any and all advice is very welcome, thanks in advance

SIW2 · 30 Apr 2022

What machine are you using to post here, if your previous one has died?

You dont need a secondary pc - you just need another hard drive to store the backup image. Almost anything will do for that. In the Uk you can get a 500gb spinning hard drive for about five quid from cex.

It would be a good idea to make an image backup onto a separate HD first. Then you can put that backup hd away for safekeeping.

Lots of free programs can make image backups.

One way would be to upgrade from win7 to win10 on the current machine . (That might be tricky if your mobo has died ).Then transfer the upgraded hd to the new machine.

If you prefer to use win7 on your new machine, it can be done with a bit of fiddling around.

It should be possible to do both:

1. make a backup image of current win7 system

2. Upgrade to win 10

3. transfer upgraded hd to new machine

4. create spare partition on the new machine

5. restore the win 7 image to spare partition - use something with an "adjust to new hardware" module

6. Run dism++ from within your win10 ( or from bootable media ) , point it at win7 partition and use dism++ to install canonkong drivers into win7 on the spare partition.

Cranium · 30 Apr 2022

The issue is I can't actually load up my PC without the replacement motherboard and CPU. So I'm confused about how I could create a backup image? I have an external HDD and a laptop, but unsure how those two could get the data from the drive of a PC that won't boot right now. A spare blank internal HD or SSD isn't an option I have right now, I can't afford a new one and the three that I have have data on them and are in the current PC. Sorry in advance if I misunderstood your post

Edit: Actually I probably could afford an internal HDD if my external HDD isn't good enough. Still unsure how to use that to make a backup image on one PC that has windows 7 with an incompatible motherboard and CPU. I'm posting from a laptop right now. At this point I'm fine with either using Windows 7 or Windows 10 with the new hardware, as long as I don't have to completely wipe the main drive, OR if I can at least get in, backup some things, then wipe the drive with a clean install. So even if I could get into Windows 7, and it's a buggy mess, if I could at least rip some stuff and put it on an external HDD that's good enough

SIW2 · 30 Apr 2022

You dont need to boot into the win7 to make an image of it.

As long as you can attach the win7 hd so the laptop can see it.

Then any imaging program can be run from within the os your laptop is using and told to make a backup of the attached win7 system.

Or you could run the imaging program from bootable media - e.g. a bootable usb plugged into your laptop. It should be able to see the win 7 hd that you attached to your laptop.

Then you tell the imaging program to backup the win7 os. You also have to tell it where to store the backup image ( which is a large file and can be stored anywhere that has the space )

How puny is your laptop ? If it not too feeble,

You can borrow a thing I made which can be extracted to create bootable usb.

1904v3.iso

Extract the iso to usb stick using usb7ice (attached ), just accept the default fat32 setting and select efi

Cranium · 30 Apr 2022

I don't think it can attach to this laptop. It's a chromebook. I have a couple of other laptops, I'll have to look at them to see whether it can attach. What should I be looking for? just a SATA port internally? Windows 7 is on an internal SSD

SIW2 · 30 Apr 2022

just a SATA port internally?

That is easiest. But you will need to be able to boot into something else to make an image of it. You will also need something attached that you can store the image on.

If the laptop is puny, you could use a smaller and less demanding boot media I made

here's a couple:
17514x64v30.iso

or this one is 32 bit and runs on lower spec machines:

17514x86.iso

Cranium · 30 Apr 2022

This is the beefiest laptop I have - Lenovo Laptop ThinkPad E560 (20EV002FUS) Intel Core i5 6th Gen 6200U (2.30GHz) 4GB Memory 500GB HDD Intel HD Graphics 520 15.6" Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit (Downgrade From Windows 10 Pro) - Newegg.com

Nothing special, but I think it has a SATA port from what I understand. So theoretically I can do this. I'll open the laptop to see for myself then go over your posts again cause I'm still a little unclear about it all. So far you've been a massive help to me, thank you so much

Edit: The laptop is installing Windows 7 updates so I can't actually open it up right now. From what I've seen online though, it can only have one drive. I'm thinking this may work for me though, if I put in the PC SSD with Windows 7 on it, could the laptop boot from it? Or will it crash due to motherboard/BIOS? If I could boot the drive from the laptop I can just back things up onto an external HDD and wipe this one clean

SIW2 · 30 Apr 2022

You need to be able to see

1. The source disk ( that you make an image of )

2. The destination disk ( where you store the image file)

If one of those is usb attached, it will be limited by the usb transfer speed, so it could take a while to make the image.

You also need to be able to boot into something to run the imaging program. Which is what the boot media is for. The boot media I posted all have some imaging programs in them already.

1. Extract the boot media iso file to usb stick using usb7ice (posted earlier)

2. attach the win7 source hd/ssd to the internal sata connector

3. Attach the destination disk to the laptop somehow - usb will do if that is the only option.

3. Plug in the bootable usb media you made in step1

4. Turn on the laptop and keep pressing the one time boot menu key ( often f12 but check the manual in case yours is different)

5. The one time boot menu should pop up and select the usb stick with the bootable media.

6. There is a small os on the usb stick which will load into ram and present you with a desktop. If you can see the source and destination disk, you are in business.

Cranium · 30 Apr 2022

So could I transfer my PC SSD to the laptop, boot into it, connect an external HDD as the destination, then maybe use another external HDD or thumb drive as the thing I boot into?

SIW2 · 30 Apr 2022

So could I transfer my PC SSD to the laptop, boot into it

NO dont boot into it. That laptop hardware is different from your dead pc. You could run into difficulties.

See my previous post.

Your laptop has 4gb ram so you could use any of the boot media iso files I posted.

This one is biggest and probably the best
1904v3.iso

or this which is a bit less demanding
17514x64v30.iso

From memory, Aomei backupper is in there and some other stuff.