Dual boot Windows 7 and Windows 8 (pre-installed) - UEFI, GPT, Secure Boot, BIOS help please

I have spent a week and a day trying to install Windows 7 on a different partition of my HDD of my new Acer Aspire V3-571G laptop. I have used the following posts in 2 Windows related forums for help to no avail. I have Also made 2 videos.

This is my first forum thread which still hasn't fixed my situation despite trying so many things recommended and following instructions to the letter to create things such as USB bootable flash drives.

http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/272422-ordered-new-laptop-win-8-but-plan-install-win-7-partitions.html

My second was made after recommendation to do so:

http://www.eightforums.com/installation-setup/17864-need-more-help-win-8-7-dual-boot-uefi-gpt.html

And now I'm being told I should ask here where there may be more help from Acer users.

Here is a list of things I have done:

-Made a recovery disk (DVD)

-Made a recovery drive (16GB USB flash drive)

*I have not made a system image

In BIOS I have:

-Disabled Secure Boot and enabled "Press F12 for Boot Selection"

-UEFI is enabled (or so that's what it says in Boot options)

Pre-installed Windows 8 WILL boot with UEFI on and Secure Boot disabled

Pre-installed Windows 8 will NOT boot with UEFI off and Secure Boot disabled

I have a genuine, unused OEM copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit with SP1 DVD whch I have copied the data to a USB and followed instructions that are to make a UEFI bootable Windows 7 installation drive.

HDD is of the GPT partition type

I have made another partition on the drive for Windows 7 to be installed to in NTFS format. The USB flash drive is in FAT32 as required,

This is what happens when I select the USB with Windows 7 or the DVD with Windows 7 to boot with UEFI enabled.

Disk/Drive says "Loading Files"

"Starting Windows" animation starts and before updating the BIOS from v2.02 to v2.11 it would freeze while the 4 colours of the Windows logo were still orbs, now, since v2.11 it completes its animation to become the Windows logo and the rays of light pulsate but even after 20 minutes nothing else happens.

The above Forum posts should give you a good idea of what I've been doing.

Here are the two videos I filmed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a34ustlp-qk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDBSsDSYFso

I really need help as I want to install SolidWorks and Office 2010 within Windows 7 - I also prefer Windows 7. I need to do so before the weekend - this cannot go on anymore! I spent good money on this in the hope that I could also install Windows 7 in dual boot with the pre-installed Windows 8 but I do not want to get rid of Windows 8 and convert the disks into MBR because I paid for the system with an OS and I'm not going to throw money away.

If worse comes to worse, I'll buy a brand new 2.5 inch internal SATA II or SATA III HDD and replace the existing one keeping that safe, while installing Windows 7 on the new HDD in MBR mode and Legacy BIOS mode, but I hope that even though this Windows 8 licence is binded to this PC and its motherboard, that This motherboard isn't binded soley to the hardware already in here - I'm not used to factory assembled PC and laptops - I usually just build my own desktop with no problems.

Professional help is very much appreciated.

Accepted answers

All comments

jayrap

I've thrown in the towel - I'm making myself ill over all this stress - I'm running out of time and I really need to use Windows 7 on this laptop - some programs I need to use don't work properly on Widows 8 apparently.

I'm buying another HDD and installing Windows 7 on that in MBR mode in Legacy BIOS mode - forking out extra cash to get it delivered on Saturday, however, it may be snowing and I really hope it arrives - I just can't be dealing with this anymore. Sorry, I can't continue to find a solution, but I'm really angry and stressed out - I wish there was a law allowing users to pick their pre-installed OS in this country because that would have made things easier.

Screw Microsoft's Windows 8 development and marketing teams
Screw the push to Windows 8
Screw the push to UEFI

I really am fed up and getting too close the the deadline for some work I need to be completing for uni - I can't take it - feeling like I just want to smash this thing up but can't afford to.

Sorry guys - this has been a bad week - lost maybe 80 hours of sleep in the last 10 days or however many days I've had this SF thread going.

Peterhugill

Did you find a solution to this

jayrap

No.

Donnutz

had your EXACT SAME situation here.

needed win7 for solidworks 2010 over the weekend here, also a game after the sldwrks stuff was over....

bui it was in a Lenovo Y500

this did it for me

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2344-dual-boot-installation-windows-8-windows-7-vista.html

If you cant find the bootsomething.efi file were it should be, you'll need another install of windows 7

I did it and now I can dualboot w7 and w8

i get an error screen every time, though, right after selecting the OS. But i just hit enter and it boots normaly.

Hope it helps

Donnutz

Scratch that

the actual link is

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/15458-uefi-bootable-usb-flash-drive-create-windows.html

the most important parts are

1 - fat32 usb key (i needed an 8gb, 4gb didint do it)

2 - messing fith the boot directoty as mentionend in the link above

3 - " open 7-Zip, navigate to the sources\install.wim\1\Windows\Boot\EFI\bootmgfw.efi on the USB flash drive, select the bootmgfw.efi file, copy it to your desktop, click/tap on OK, and close 7-Zip. (see screenshot below)"

and then renaming it, putting it in the right directory, etc

jayrap

Those were all the steps I was trying back then - that website and my huge long threads that nobody could seem to find a solution - UEFI and GPT were my big obsticles. I ggave up in the end and wiped the disk - been running Windows 7 and I never did manage to finish that assignment in time because of all this so I may have failed my course because of all this.

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