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Windows 8 Help!

Asked by FMH,

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Grand Master

FMH

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Hi.

A friend of mine is trying to install Windows 8 right now. But he's getting a driver's error. It says that a driver is missing from your computer. It isn't specifying which one.

And there's the option to select the drivers to install, but that list is empty.

What do you recommend he should do?

Thanks.

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Grand Master

FMH

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Might be the RAID Controller driver it needs

Download from the board manufacturers site, extract and copy to FAT32 formatted flash drive, when asked for the driver, point it to that driver on the stick

I just messaged him this, and he has no idea what driver that is. And neither do I. :p

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Grand Master

Detection

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I just messaged him this, and he has no idea what driver that is. And neither do I. :p

:D Some boards need you to specify the driver manually before you can see the HDDs, most are built into the Windows install disk but some are a PITA and make you do it manually

Generally it is mainly true for people running a RAID setup, but I`m pretty sure I've had a board that made me do it for a single HDD too

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Grand Master

Detection

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Okay, installation has started and he has resolved the driver's error.

But now he is running low on space, so there is a file by the name of "windows.old". Can he delete that? Is it safe to delete it?

Yea, its the old install of the previous windows that windows 8 keeps incase it needs to roll back, unfortunately its not very easy to delete

He will have to take ownership of and give himself full permissions over the entire folder and files

Might be easier to boot a live Linux Distro and delete it from linux

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Grand Master

FMH

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Yea, its the old install of the previous windows that windows 8 keeps incase it needs to roll back, unfortunately its not very easy to delete

He will have to take ownership of and give himself full permissions over the entire folder and files

Might be easier to boot a live Linux Distro and delete it from linux

One more question. How can he revert back to Windows 7? He wants to re-install so he can dual-boot it with Windows 7.

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Grand Master

Detection

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One more question. How can he revert back to Windows 7? He wants to re-install so he can dual-boot it with Windows 7.

In Windows 8, put the mouse down to the bottom left start screen corner and Right Click > Disk Management

Select C: > Right click > Shrink Volume

Choose the size he wants the partition for 7 to be and hit Shrink

Once it has partitioned, it will be Unpartitioned Space, to avoid confusion with any other drives etc, I find it best to Right Click that unpartitioned space and choose Format > give it a name like "New 7" something easy to spot / remember during HDD selection in setup and choose Quick Format

Once it has formatted, just boot from the 7 DVD as normal and choose that new partition to install onto

The end result will be a choice of 7 or 8 to boot into when he powers on the machine :)

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Grand Master

FMH

Posted
  • Author
Posted

In Windows 8, put the mouse down to the bottom left start screen corner and Right Click > Disk Management

Select C: > Right click > Shrink Volume

Choose the size he wants the partition for 7 to be and hit Shrink

Once it has partitioned, it will be Unpartitioned Space, to avoid confusion with any other drives etc, I find it best to Right Click that unpartitioned space and choose Format > give it a name like "New 7" something easy to spot / remember during HDD selection in setup and choose Quick Format

Once it has formatted, just boot from the 7 DVD as normal and choose that new partition to install onto

The end result will be a choice of 7 or 8 to boot into when he powers on the machine :)

Detection thank you so so much for the help! :)

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