2013 Archives

[DeathWish]

Hello

I have an Aspire M5-581TG. It came with Windows 8. Three times when I've started it up it says it's someting wrong with the windows installation. Same thing happened all three times, throwing the repair screen in my face and after several of hours (even days) it installes Windows 8 again.

Well, after 9 hours of repairing screen the third time I decided to upgrade my Windows 8 installation to Windows 7. Followed some tips from this forum and I got started with the installation (Windows 7 Professional 64Bit SP1).

Here's where the problems start. It is all so slow. Installation takes a good 10 hours. Just booting Windows is an hour. I've read about others that have gotten this problem but never seen any solution. It does not get any better when I install the drivers (installing drivers take hours as well). Anyone know anything about this problem?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[DeathWish]

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[Alan-London]

I have that same model with SSD. I've not read anything about this problem.
In my case, once I had worked out the necessary steps (nothing had been published when I upgraded mine), everything went fine. It boots in the blink of an eye and runs absolutely fine. Assuming you followed all the steps, I wonder if your laptop has a problem that was also the cause of your Win8 issues.

As a check, you should have followed these steps:

Disable secure boot.
Remove ALL passwords (or risk a frozen drive).
Switch from UEFI to legacy.
Ensure SATA Mode is AHCI.
Do NOT replace BIOS (leave the Win8 one supplied - it is absolutely fine and provides future upgradeability if needed).
Install Win7 (have Win7 completely wipe and partition drive). Be sure you are happy doing this - recovery option will be gone).
Load all driver for Win7 from Acer download site (with the exception of nVidia - get 331.82 direct from nVidia).

[DeathWish]

Thank you for taking the time to anwer.

I did follow those steps, so I start to belive it's something with the hardware as well. Been restarting many times, trying to install the drivers. Most drivers fails to install. Twice it has started like it should (30 sec boot) but that is the only good thing   =/

[Cedric35]

I'm trying to do the downgrade on an S3-391.  It has the 320GB drive and the 20 Gb SSD (Hybrid drive).

I have two questions:

The instructions above say "Remove ALL passwords (or risk a frozen drive)"  My Securtity Tab in Bios says:

Supervisor Password is Clear

User Password is Clear

HDD Password is Frozen

Password on Boot: Disabled

The only changable option seems to be Set Supervisor Password.  Does this mean my passwords have been removed?

Question 2:  Which partition do I attempt to install Win 7 on?

the list of partitions read as follows:

Disk 0 Partition 1    3.7GB   Type: Primary

Disk 0 Partition 2    14.9GB  Type: Primary

Disk 1 Partition 1: Recovery  400MB Type: OEM (reserved)

Disk 1 Partiion 2 ESP  300MB  Type: System

Disk 1 Partition 3  128 MB  Type: MSR (Reserved)

Disk 1 Partition 4: ACER  285.2 GB Type: Primary

Disk 1 Partition 5  350 MB Type: OEM (Reserved)

Disk 1 Partition 6: Push Button Reset  11.7 GB  Type: OEM (Reserved)

Each of the available Partitions says "Windows cannot be installed to Disk X, Parition Y (show details)

I understand I need to change the type of the drive to MSR before I install Windows 7, but which one should I choose?

Thanks