Clean Windows 7 on Asus G75VX (Win8 pre-installed)

[bjurn]

Hello!

I had been lurking around here trying to figure out either a good way to move my Windows 8 (core-oem) installation to my new SSD or install Windows 7. No post that i found had an easy route to follow so i thought i write down a quick "guide".

Backstory: I was originally trying to re-install my Windows 8 to the new ssd.. Did not work, even Asus support said the Windows 8 "embedded" into the bios could not recognize the SSD as a suitable drive since it only worked on original hardware. I then asked, what if the harddrive went haywire and did not work anymore ?
They told me to get support from Microsoft as they could not do anything about this matter.

So back to scrapping Windows 8 and doing a fresh-o-so-clean Windows 7 installation on the SSD.
Before you start throwing rocks at me about drivers and such, i got everything to work. Even WIFI (thanks to *will edit for link*).

Nearly every driver on the support disc can be installed on Windows 7, expect for chipset and Wifi (chipset i got off newest G75VM Windows 7 driver download page).

Use an external drive, flash drive or just dvds to transfer every picture, game file or whatevz. to.

Installation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMlsfk10PUA).

Enter bios, rapidly spam your F2 key when the computer turns on.

- Switch to "Boot" and set “Launch CSM” to Enabled.
- Switch to "Security" and set "Secure Boot Control" to Disabled.
- Press F10 to save and exit.

(quoted Rewben)

Now, only have the SSD harddrive inside the computer where the HDD was before.
Put everything back together.
Load the dvd drive with a "legally" owned copy of Windows7 Ultimate.

And install.

Now, after this is done. Windows 7 will not find any drivers. So pop in your Asus support dvd.
Install the ethernet card.

If you dont have a ethernet option, figure something out.

Launch Windows Update, and update everything!

Now the system will find all the hardware.

Install all the drivers.

Chipset, audio blablabla.

And finally wifi drivers HERE
Thanks @rledge21 for providing wifi driver.

Over and out.

[khai7]

Asus did not charge me lol i offer to pay them they say u just purchase it and still under warranty 🙂 (but i did buy service men counter and tech Starbuck latte 🙂

[cl-Albert]

Hi khai7,
That's great! I expect the service center installed Win8 on your G75Vx instead of Win7 though, so for the G75Vx customers that want to install Win7, they want to follow bjurn's suggestions in this thread since ASUS doesn't currently provide support for Win7 on the G75Vx.

[khai7]

cl-Albert wrote:
Hi khai7,
That's great! I expect the service center installed Win8 on your G75Vx instead of Win7 though, so for the G75Vx customers that want to install Win7, they want to follow bjurn's suggestions in this thread since ASUS doesn't currently provide support for Win7 on the G75Vx.

hello, yes they install my ori win8, or clone it... but i still miss win 7 lol but win 8 problem is no start button but i fix it with classic shell win start button and disable metro...

[mynewrog]

My plan was exactly the same as the OP's: Buy an SSD and move Windows 8 there while use the 1TB SATA for storage purposes. I can confirm I got the same response from various ASUS support sessions and I was also redirected to Microsoft Support believing it would not be possible to do this until I figured a work-around. A few words of caution:

1) The method provided by ASUS support using a recoveyr drive doesn't work. By using a 16gb flash drive the system is always "Unable to reset your pc" as "A recovery partition is missing" even though you have included it when doing the recovery creation. They will think you've created the flash badly and tell you to re-create it but it is not the case. It's all down to Windows not being able to recover if the flash drive used is of a smaller size than the hard disk containing the recovery partition (it's the case 99.9% of the time unless you use a flash of 1TB size!)

2) Do NOT ever ever ever follow the advice about contacting MS support. I did and all the guy was able to tell me was that my Windows had been "locked" because I tried to install them on another drive and make me worry for nothing. Totally useless step.

3) What I did and actually worked fine was this: Leave Windows 8 installed and get Acronis True Image (or other similar software). Install the SSD and swap the 2 drives (put the SSD on the hdd bay where the SATA is, and move the SATA to the left bay). Windows 8 will still boot with no problem. Once the SSD is in, go to Acronis and choose Clone Disk. Let it clone your SATA to your SSD (it will automatically copy all the original partitions proportionally). Then remove the SATA and see your system booting fine from the SSD. Your SSD will then be able to recover windows and reset your pc at any time since it will have the recovery partition copied to it.

After that I connected my SATA to another computer just to safely delete all partitions without any confilicts but maybe you can do this in your G75 as well, haven't tried that. And finally I re-installed my empty SATA to my G75, formated, job done and Windows 8 are now fully transferred to the SSD.

PS. Although Windows 8 will make you lose way more time and annoy you in the most simple everyday things you use to do but it's more like a matter of being able to use them on your SSD because you have every right to. Cheers.

[Mcblazer0]

I've got a G75VX-RH71-CA laptop that came with G75VW Win8 and Win7 support discs and neither one is accepted on my laptop. They won't run. I have got Win7 Pro installed on my Samsung 840 Pro 128GB SSD but that was as far as I could go with no drivers. Do you have the Win7 support disc for a G75VX? Could I somehow get a copy?

[Sesimie]

Ok lurked around and finally had to post.

I have a G75vx-TS72 and i reformatted my boot drive. (crucial M4 SSD made to boot using macrium reflect)

Unfortunately i installed a windows 7 ROG theme and i was no longer able to see my taskbar or desktop (yup i used classic shell for the win7 start button)

I decided that i'd play with win8 but i'm a windows7 ultimate fan for a long time. Sadly i reformatted my SSD to have my Clean install of Win7 ulti 64-bit....after install i reach desktop for the first time sequence....then the laptop restarts...and a blue-screen appears with what looks like memory addresses.

I've been able to do memory diagnostics....and also load drivers off of my Asus Driver and utility disk. But windows7 wont start in safe mode or normally. always the blue-screen. After i attempt to fix with startup repair.....i get Bad Driver and Status offline errors.


currently looking for a Windows 7 ultimate sp2 install (not probable) with hopefully the correct drivers...

Any advice / help would be appreciated.

[Sesimie]

Ok i got my windows 7 ultimate sorted.....had to go through all wifi drivers i could find from asus...:cool:

[rewben]

just curious, what's your wifi adapter?

[Sesimie]

rewben wrote:
just curious, what's your wifi adapter?

i downloaded all drivers from asus support site...but finally in my Device Manager

Asus 802.11ac Network adapter

The older asus driver i used were extracted to this folder name...win7-10.0.0.221-whql

[Sesimie]

Question....where do i get working thunderbolt drivers? (not pressing as i don't use TB for now)