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Installing Windows 7 over Ubuntu

13 years ago

A few months back, my laptop (Lenovo SL410) hard drive died. I replaced it with a SanDisk solid state hard drive. I have the recovery discs and tried to reinstall Windows 7 HP 64 bit, but something went wrong and the installation hung during the second dis, where the drivers are.

I needed to be able to use it right away, so I loaded a Linux OS, Ubuntu 12.04. Works fine and very fast and I like it, but I'd rather install Windows on the HD and run Ubuntu from a flash drive.

So I tried reinstalling Windows, both with the disks I have and with an official ISO from the Microsoft site. It's not working, and I'm not sure why. Do I need to format the HD? (I thought the Windows installation CD did that?) do I need to download a driver for the hard drive? (It's a SATA drive, same as the old one.)

Any ideas for me?

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Comments (7)

mikie_gw
13 years ago
Before you install windows you need to look in bios and make sure drive is set to AHCi ...or Raid. Or windows probably wont complete the install on a solid state drive.
joann23456
Original Author
13 years ago
Did thatad already. It's set to ACHi. I read that somewhere.
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mikie_gw
13 years ago
Probably need to make your Ubuntu bootable flash drive then do the Custom Install of win7 which will give you the clean the disk/format 1 large partion. After the install you can use the win7 disk manager to make any other partitions you might want.
Win7 wants to be the first installed partitions. Usually it will automatically make a small hidden unlettered boot partition then C drive. If by chance it gives an option for sizes on the hidden boot partition, 100mb is default but kind of small if you have problems down the road.. 200 or 300mb is the size lenovo seems to like to make them.

Its pretty easy to download Lenovo drivers.. just make sure for win7.. support.lenovo.com . Be nice to have those on hand incase your Lenovo has a special something that the win7 dvd doesn't have a generic for. It might ask you to insert driver disc !!

This post was edited by mikie on Wed, Dec 5, 12 at 10:37
emma
13 years ago
I was told when I needed the HD replaced the recovery disks would not work with the new HD. I don't know if that was true or not I replaced my PC instead.
bob414
13 years ago
That's strange. The reason for making recovery discs is that you need them if the hard drive fails so that you can't use the recovery partition. It's easier to use the recovery partition if you can.
owbist
13 years ago
I was told when I needed the HD replaced the recovery disks would not work with the new HD. I don't know if that was true or not I replaced my PC instead.

Not true, as Bob notes the whole point of making recovery disks is to be able to re-install after any catastrophic failure like a hard drive failing.

In fact if you do not have those disks you can use any other Windows disks of the same version as long as you enter the 25 digit code stuck to the outside of the case. The only problem then becomes getting the relevant drivers, not impossible but at times not an easy task.
emma
13 years ago
owbist, thanks for the info.

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