Install W7 on netbook Asus R103BA

Question

I have a netbook ASUS R103BA and it came with W8 and I don't want it. I want W7 and I'm not able to install, since my W7 cd do not recognize the hard drive, it says i must look for the drivers and don't list the partitions for me to select one and install W7. What do I do?

Sorry for my english.

Answer 1

I had the same problem once (I own the same notebook model and use multiple operating systems).

1. Try to enter your BIOS and disable "Fastboot", further enable CSM with all options and you are fine. "Fastboot" disables external boot media, therefore you were unable to run Win7 setup.
2. AHCI drivers are part of any Windows setup (since Windows Vista, older Versions), but these are the default Microsoft AHCI drivers. If a system requires other AHCI drivers (such as AMD AHCI or something) you have to get these and provide it during the installation process.

My response is pretty late, but maybe it's still an unresolved. :)

Answer 2

Try setting your BIOS to SATA IDE compatible mode instead of AHCI - and reconfigure after having installed your W7 and added matching device drives.

Answer 3

I want W7 and I'm not able to install, since my W7 DVD does not recognize the hard drive, it says i must look for the drivers and don't list the partitions for me to select one and install W7. What do I do?

This almost certainly is not a failure to recognise the drives. Instead it is failing to recognise the SATA controller. It is a minor difference, but on important one. In this case you want to find the drivers for the controller that the disks are attached to.

First, go to your motherboard firmware (the UEFI program) and look at the SATA controllers configuration. Any modern system should do AHCI, which is what you want and which is usually recognised by the drivers on the windows 7 install DVD. If it is for some reason set to 'RAID' then change this to AHCI.

Some vendors ship with systems capable of fake RAID. Not becuase of RAID, but because they can use that to enable additional features. But at the cost of a custom drivers and challenges if you evern need to read the dis elesewhere. So correcting that to AHCI is the way to go.

If it was already in AHCI mode then you have a chipset which the windows 7 installler has no drivers for. You will need to find these, put them on a DVD and load them before you try to select the disk. (on loading them windows should initialise the controller, scan for attached disks and from there it is installation as usual).

Recap:

1. Check that the disk controller mode is set to AHCI (not RAID, not legacy)
2. If that failed find out which drivers you need (lspci on Linux will help here. Or maybe the Asus website).
3. Put that driver on a DVD. Insert win7 DVD and boot it. Swap DVD at the time you are prompted for optional drivers, load the drivers. Swap the DVDs back (windows will not tell you do do this and merely throw a cryptic error if you forget).