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I am downgrading a laptop from windows 8 to windows 7, but in order to do so I have to use diskpart clean. The disk has several partitions, namely a system partition and a data partition.
Will diskpart clean destroy the existing data in the data partition?
dtech
Posted 2017-01-07T15:51:34.040
Reputation: 201
If you don't clean the data partition you will not lose data, but before doing any partition modifications you have to be prepared to lose your entire disc, so you must create a disc image before you embark on this sort of task: it is very easy to make mistakes, as I know all too well. To make recovery easier, take a separate copy of your data partition. You cannot have too many back-ups. – AFH – 2017-01-07T16:19:54.900
Damned windows 8 is like a tick. Can't install windows 7 on a gpt partition, the partition with the install is already formatted, now I'm xcopying the files on a flash drive under command prompt so I can
diskpart clean... – dtech – 2017-01-07T16:35:19.483"Can't install windows 7 on a GPT partition" - You do realize that it actually is possible to install Windows 7 on a GPT partition right? – Ramhound – 2017-01-07T16:45:40.660
@Ramhound - the installer says it can't. The how-to's I found all include the
diskpart cleanstep. – dtech – 2017-01-07T16:54:08.513Your booting the installation in UEFI mode, and trying to install a 64-bit version of Windows 7, if both of those are true Windows 7 supports GPT. "the installer says it can't. " - doesn't tell me anything, provide the exact message, I am telling you Windows 7 supports GPT. – Ramhound – 2017-01-07T17:21:17.670
@Ramhound - will see about that after I make a backup, just in case. – dtech – 2017-01-07T17:34:48.560
@Ramhound the problem is that the USB flash doesn't show up without CSM, so it tries to install in legacy bios mode. – dtech – 2017-01-07T18:55:17.553
If a USB 2.0 flash drive isn't showing up unless you enable CSM then its not configured to be a EFI drive. Use Rufus to create it – Ramhound – 2017-01-07T19:17:24.927
That's what I am doing now, I've already done it actually, but for some reason after I select gpt and then select the image, the partition scheme resets back to mbr, which I didn't notice the first time. – dtech – 2017-01-07T19:19:12.340
@Ramhound - and it never ends. Now the flash is recognized as uefi bootable, but "windows failed to start blah blah recent hardware or software change..." : efi/microsoft/boot/bcd status: 0xc00000d - an error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data. – dtech – 2017-01-07T20:22:51.567
You need to format the drive, so there are no partitions on the drive, before you attempt to install Windows. I hope you understand that, there isn't a mechanic to go from Windows 8 to Windows 7, unless you format the drive. All your other solution does would allow Windows 7 to install in Legacy Mode, and you would end up with MBR partitions. – Ramhound – 2017-01-07T20:26:54.513
@Ramhound - I have formatted the system partition. The idea here is to keep the data partition in tact. I was able to boot from the flash in csm mode, and despite a warning about gpt it is now installing, hopefully that will work. – dtech – 2017-01-07T20:35:04.327
"The idea here is to keep the data partition in tact." - Can you migrate the data to another drive, do as I suggest install Windows on the unallocated partition, then create the data partition after Windows 7 is installed? You currently have a GPT or MBR HDD? – Ramhound – 2017-01-07T20:38:00.413
Let us continue this discussion in chat.
– dtech – 2017-01-07T20:39:21.213