Unistalling Windows 8

Boy i feel stupid.
I own a netbook with official pre installed Win 7 Home Premium OA 32 bits.

I downloaded and installed on the same partition Windows 8.

I have recently read that I cant go back to my Win 7 without a copy of Win 7. How do I do that? I bought my computer in the US but in Europe at the moment. Do I need to contact Asus? Buy a copy? Download a copy?

 

Hi,

Well the good news is that most likely your data from Windows 7 is still in tact (documents, music, photos, videos, etc).

Are you absolutely sure you installed Windows 8 on the Windows 7 partition? I did not know that was an option with the installer.

Are you able to run the following so we can see what partitions are currently present? It may not be necessary to reinstall Windows 7.

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/9956/listparts.gif For 32-bit (x86) systems download ListParts and save it to your desktop.

• Open ListParts.exe and place a checkmark in "List BCD".
• Then press the Scan button.
• When finished, Notepad will open automatically and a log (Result.txt) will be created in the same directory the tool was run from (Should be on your desktop).
• Attach this to your next message. (How to attach)

 

If you installed it beside Windows 7, you most likely did not remove the recovery partition. You should be able to reset it to factory default.

 

As i once experienced, my idea is to boot windows7 and right on my computer and goto system properties and then advanced tab, then startup and recovery settings, choose default operating system to windows 8 and then format the volume where you installed windows 8. Done.

Ronnie<snip>

 

I have installed it as an update from windows 7 but on a PC that had no important stuff on it.
The bad news is that as a upgrade you no longer have the use of "system restore" so you will need to use the recovery file, i suggest you save any important documents or files to an external source because the recovery file will restore it to factory state and that is with no applications or files that you have installed since you got the laptop.

I am surprised that MS do not warn people that installing on the same partition is not reversible without the recovery disks.

To find your recovery file open the pop out menu on the right side of your screen and click on "search" then in the bar type "recovery" and hopefully the file is still there.

 

Hmm glad i cant in stall it on on the Xp side i would lose every thing i would have too reboot the system.

 

If you have choosen the upgrade option it will write over your current windows and it renames it to windows.old, If you want to uninstall windows 8 you have to reload whatever windows you have on disc and format the whole computer.

I had to do the same as I didn't like windows 8 consumer preview and some of the programs are not working properly.

 

Everyone:
I got an Asus 1215n netbook with preloaded Win 7 Home Premium 32 bits. I didnt come with a Windows disc. I dont think there is a Windows installer on my drives either. - Thanks everyone!

Thisisu:
Heres the log you asked for.
There was an external HD at the moment of the scan.
My computer has a C drive where Windows 7 or 8 are and a D drive for storing files.

Just Playin:
I would love to have a factory recovery option, but I think I dont have one. But then I could be too ignorant to know I have one.

BILLMCC66:
I thought I could do a system restore from one I had done 2 weeks ago, but all I found was the one Win 8 does upon installation, so instead of my file from 2 weeks ago, I could only restore to 30 min ago (Win 8 installation)

sexyandy81:
My C drive shows the following windows folders:
-Windows (full of stuff - 10GB)
-Windows.old (full of stuff - 5 GB)
-WindowsESD (just a couple of folders and a setup.exe which launches Windows Consumer Preview - I think its the installer for Win 8 - 12GB)

 

Thisisu may see something I don't but it looks to me that Win7 is no longer available. Your documents and personal files from Win7 are probably located in Windows.old as mentioned earlier.

A look at your manual and your partition information seems to show a recovery partition.
But be aware that everything gets wiped out. I can't be certain but most likely that includes all your files on D: as well it usually does unless there is a specific option to only recover C:. It doesn't look like your external HD has enough space to save all your personal files from both C: and D: so you should take that into consideration before committing to a recovery.

You can test if your recovery partition is still valid by turning off Boot Booster in BIOS and then starting the computer while hitting F9. If you get the recovery screen then the partition is still working. You can just hit Exit once you know recovery is available. Then you would have to figure out what needs to be backed up before performing the recovery.

 

Thanks plodr and sach2 and everyone here.
I just downloaded the manual from my computer and understood that there's a hidden partition with an option to restore to factory setting. I also understand that it would basically nuke my data, so I'll just delete a bunch of crap I dont care about and use my external HD to temp backup. Thanks a lot for the help and screw MS for not making an uninstall on Win 8.

 

Thanks a lot for the help and screw MS for not making an uninstall on Win 8

Not really MS's fault here... you should have made sure that what you were doing was the correct option in the first place.

 

couldnt you just re install windows?