GOING BACK TO WINDOWS 7 from WINDOWS 8
As an engineer, I was curious about Windows 8. Thus I bought Windows 8 online directly from Microsoft which automatically was setup on my USB thumb drive. I did a BIOS update on my computer, also saved an image of my Windows 7 system (VERY SMART STEP!) and then I was ready. I choose to do a clean windows 8 install! Played with Windows 8 for a month and realized what a mess.
So then, I thought, its time to put Windows 7 back on my computer. This should be simple. Just restore my Windows 7 image. WRONG ! ! ! !
You have no idea how many problems and errors I discovered. There were so many I did not even keep track of all the error codes and everything that would not work. And I was armed with everything: I had a Windows 7 bootable USB recovery drive, a Windows 8 bootable install/recovery USB drive, a Windows 7 image file, and the latest and greatest BIOS. All were of no help !
What I discovered was that Windows 8 changes your hard drive from MBR to GPT (boot sector) and each one does not like the other. Thus you CANNOT boot a Windows 7 recovery USB drive AND/OR do a Windows 7 image restore if your hard drive is set as a GPT volume/disk; likewise, you CANNOT do a Windows 7 MBR image recovery from a Windows 8 recovery bootable USB drive.
After spending 16 straight hours of research and work on this problem, I finally found the solution. It's a painful solution but it works.
What I had to do is: (this assumes you installed Windows 8 and thus your hard drive is set as GPT)
see: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/26203-convert-gpt-disk-mbr-disk.html
- boot up from your Windows 8 recovery/install USB drive and enter into COMMAND PROMPT (NOTE: this is not starting up the entire Windows 8 operating system)
- you MUST manually delete all volumes on the primary disk that is listed on your hard drive (do research using 'diskpart' and also 'delete partition' and 'delete volume' commands. I think I finally had to use the delete partition command)
- Then execute a 'convert mbr' command to the primary disk
Once you know that GPT is gone, your set! Just reboot using a Windows 7 recovery USB/CD drive and select restore an image (Windows 7 image). It works! You now have Windows 7 back.
You could try using the original Windows 7 install CDs, but my new laptop does not have a CD player.