Best way to install win 7 next to or over win 10

[jachin99]

I got a copy of win 7, and I'm trying to install it next to windows 10 on a usb disc but the setup never finishes. I get past the phase where windows is making registry changes, and the install just gets stuck on the starting windows screen. I have disable secure boot, and enabled booting from an external device. What advice can you give me.

[cwinfield]

Uefi install? Csm enabled? Gpt partition? Win 7 also does not support USB 3 during install due to no native drivers but considering where the install is failing I would say it's unlikely. Raid, sata or ide hdd?

[jachin99]

UEFI boot. SATA HDD and no usb 3.0. I used RUFUS to create install media

[stuartm]

I seem to recall needing to have the disk being installed set as the default hdd to boot in my BIOS to get win 7 to install successfully.
Might try that if it's not the default hdd boot target

[jachin99]

To be clear about my problem, I can get about 75 percent of the way through the install process but eventually I get stuck on a screen telling me windows is starting.

[jachin99]

[quote="cwinfield"]Uefi install? Csm enabled? Gpt partition? Win 7 also does not support USB 3 during install due to no native drivers but considering where the install is failing I would say it's unlikely. Raid, sata or ide hdd?[/quote
I'm not sure what Csm is

[cwinfield]

The Compatibility Support Module (CSM) is a component of the UEFI firmware that provides legacy BIOS compatibility by emulating a BIOS environment, allowing legacy operating systems and some option ROMs that do not support UEFI to still be used.

To be honest, it is going to be very difficult to narrow down what exactly the issue is. It could be your USB port on the computer, it could be the stick, it could be your install ISO, I have experienced similar issues installing from a usb key which I solved by simply burning an ISO and using a USB DVD drive.

You may want to use a guide such as http://www.howtogeek.com/214477/how-to- ... f-windows/

So just to be certain when you said your using SATA are you using ACHI or IDE? You could try changing and see if it helps. Also did you have to F6 have disk for your SATA controller driver to be detected? sometimes this can cause installation lockups if no driver is supplied for your chipset.

[jachin99]

I took your advice and burned an ISO disc but still no luck. I'll look into some of your other suggestions. I will also attempt to configure the machine for legacy boot up. I am thinking that I might try to restore the machine to Win8, and then try again. I have an ISO of my current ten build to go back to. Do you think rolling back to win 8 and rolling back to win 7 from there would be helpful?

[jachin99]

I checked my DevMan, and it lists ACHI. Should I try to change this?

[jachin99]

After a whole weekend of going back and forth, i got it to install right before bed last night. Here is what I had to change: i previously had Win 10 on the machine, with GPT, and UEFI enabled, and I'm guessing both prevented windows 7 from installing. In order to fix this, I left my boot mode in UEFI, and within the UEFI advanced options, I opened a command prompt, and used DISKPART to format my Boot sectors from GPT to MBR. From here I restarted, went into bios, and renabled legacy boot mode. I lost my recovery partition, and a few others because MBR only supports three partitions. Thanks for all of the help, and I'm glad this part is over.

[cwinfield]

Sounds like your win 7 usb install was not created correctly. In order to do a win 7 uefi install you have to manually make changes detailed here: https://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/1 ... ndows.html see step 11 at the bottom, definitely not the easiest task in the world.

[jachin99]

I knew a lot less about this whole process before I start than i do now so I probably did something wrong creating install media. At the very least, i got real world lesson in boot records, formatting hard drives, and DISKPART.