Bios issue!

[thinlizzy]

H'i folks,
I'm new to this forum site so please bear with me.
I know a little bit about computers, but no expert, far from it. Anyway, I recently decided to have a go at building my own desktop computer. I bought a tower a MICRO ATX computer case with a PSU 500W power supply. I also purchased a GA-A320M-S2H Motherboard. I installed the motherboard, and then I installed a 1T hard drive that came from my old computer which is only about 10 months old with very little use. It also has a DVD drive. After all that was installed, I went into the Bios to set it up, and install a new Windows 7 complete with product key. My problem is I set Bios to boot from CD/DVD/USB to install the windows 7 o/s. What happens when I boot up is it seems to boot from the hard drive with the old windows 7 o/s on it which comes up with a message which states: this is not a genuine version of windows. It doesn't matter what I do in the Bios, it still keeps booting in the same way through the hard drive and the old windows 7 o/s. According to the motherboard manual, the CD/DVD drive is enabled on boot up. I don't know what else to do. I'm getting desperate now. It's just sitting here doing nothing. I would appreciate any help or advice I can get on this. I'm obviously not as clever as I thought I was. HayHo.
Thinlizzy.

 

[brunation]

F8 for the boot menu?

Edit:

Enter the BIOS
Select the BIOS tab.
Does the DVD drive (with OS DVD in it) show as an option?

If you unplug the HDD and boot does it boot from the DVD?

 

[thinlizzy]

F8 for the boot menu?

H'i brunation,
Sorry to sound thick, but I'm not sure what you mean.

 

[brunation]

Sorry to sound thick, but I'm not sure what you mean.

You enter the BIOS with the DEL key.
Most bios use F8 or F11 to select a boot option menu.

 

[brunation]

F12 for that mobo according to the image in the manual.

 

[thinlizzy]

F12 for that mobo according to the image in the manual.

Yes I know how to get into the Bios and the menu, but I can't get it to boot from CD/DVD as priority on boot up for some reason.

 

[brunation]

Yes I know how to get into the Bios and the menu, but I can't get it to boot from CD/DVD as priority on boot up for some reason.

If the DVD drive contains a bootable media it'll show in the F12 menu. Does it?

 

[MarkE19]

Many motherboards will offer the boot from CD when pressing F12 as it boots. However they then put up a message saying 'press any key to boot from CD'. If you miss this it then moves on to the HDD. So keep an eye on the screen as it boots and you may just see the above message (or something similar).

One question though - why are you installing Windows 7? It is many years out of date so you would be better off installing Windows 10. You do realise that the Win7 license key will still activate a copy of Win10?

Mark.

 

[thinlizzy]

If the DVD drive contains a bootable media it'll show in the F12 menu. Does it?

Sorry about the delay, had to go out. I'll try that now

 

[thinlizzy]

Many motherboards will offer the boot from CD when pressing F12 as it boots. However they then put up a message saying 'press any key to boot from CD'. If you miss this it then moves on to the HDD. So keep an eye on the screen as it boots and you may just see the above message (or something similar).

One question though - why are you installing Windows 7? It is many years out of date so you would be better off installing Windows 10. You do realise that the Win7 license key will still activate a copy of Win10?

Mark.

H'i Mark, Thanks for your interest, brunation has just said the same thing. F12 seems the key, I didn't know that. I'm going to try that now. Thanks.

 

[thinlizzy]

H'i Mark, Thanks for your interest, brunation has just said the same thing. F12 seems the key, I didn't know that. I'm going to try that now. Thanks.

The reason I want to install windows 7 is I like it, and I just don't like windows 10.

Sorry about the delay, had to go out. I'll try that now

Right, I've tried pressing F12 and it comes up: please select boot device: P0:ATAPI DVD A DH16A6L, then underneath that: Realtek PXE B08 D00, then under that is: P3: MB 1000ECWCQ, and then under that it then says: Enter Setup. these are my options. I think I've chosen the right one. I opted for P0:ATAPI DVD A DH16A6L the first one, but it's still the same.

 

[EndlessWaves]

You're likely to encounter problems trying to get such an old operating system to run on modern hardware. I'm afraid the world has moved on.

You don't say what you dislike about Windows 10 but if it's only superficial stuff like the interface then there are third party programs that offer more options.


To fix this particular issue I'd probably download a bootable partition manager like Gparted and just wipe the old disk

 

[thinlizzy]

If the DVD drive contains a bootable media it'll show in the F12 menu. Does it?

Okay, I've managed to get it to boot from the DVD, which is great but now I've another problem. When windows 7 installation gets to the first restart procedure it restarts, but then goes back to the old windows 7 again. If I press the F12 key during the restart it goes back to the beginning of installing the new windows 7 o/s. I've tried this many times with the same results. Any ideas?

 

[outoftheknow]

@thinlizzy - welcome to the forum

As you can see you don’t need to answer each person giving advice with the same reply. If you have different things to say to each piece of advice, of course answering each is the way to go

 

[thinlizzy]

You're likely to encounter problems trying to get such an old operating system to run on modern hardware. I'm afraid the world has moved on.

You don't say what you dislike about Windows 10 but if it's only superficial stuff like the interface then there are third party programs that offer more options.


To fix this particular issue I'd probably download a bootable partition manager like Gparted and just wipe the old disk

H'i, EndlessWaves,
I don't know what it is but I suppose I'm just used to windows 7. As for downloading a bootable partition manager is a bit beyond me I'm afraid. I'm not completely computer illiterate, but I'm no expert either.

 

[thinlizzy]

@thinlizzy - welcome to the forum

As you can see you don’t need to answer each person giving advice with the same reply. If you have different things to say to each piece of advice, of course answering each is the way to go

Okay, I understand.

 

[outoftheknow]

Okay, I understand.

No worries - you didn’t do anything wrong it just adds what amounts to duplicate posts to the threads more a housekeeping issue for us mods than anything else

 

[outoftheknow]

Win7 was so long ago I’ve forgotton how the keys worked - but can’t you use the one with the warning and change the key? That then changes to genuine?

as I say it’s been a long time and my only exposure to Win7 was 3 years at work where most of the menus We’re greyed out I went from XP from its release to Win8 after that had been around for a while

Edit - like this -https://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ce677eb0-7d97-46d6-81df-a05dca1c2b85/change-product-key-windows-7

 

[CARLOS]

Okay, I've managed to get it to boot from the DVD, which is great but now I've another problem. When windows 7 installation gets to the first restart procedure it restarts, but then goes back to the old windows 7 again. If I press the F12 key during the restart it goes back to the beginning of installing the new windows 7 o/s. I've tried this many times with the same results. Any ideas?

Are you installing the new Windows 7 on the hard drive that the old version is already on ?

If so then when you start the install process the first thing that windows install does is give you the option to format the hard drive and you need to do this, make sure only the one hard drive and the dvd drive are connected, if when it lists the drives and asks where to install to it shows more then one drive still then you need to delete the partitions before installing.

 

[thinlizzy]

Okay, I understand.

Okay, I understand.

Alright Folks, I've finally managed to install Windows 7 on my new build, thanks to the combined help from the people of this forum. I thank you all very much. After trying holding down different keys during restart, I found I needed to hold down F12 for the duration of restart, and then windows 7 o/s would continue installing where it left off before it restarted. Anyway, I thank you all again for your help, it was most appreciated.
thinlizzy. (Dave)

 

[thinlizzy]

Hello again folks, sorry to bother you all again. I've decided to take MarkE19s, EndlessWaves, and others on this post, and go with Windows 10. I've downloaded on to a CD/DVD and tried to install it, but I'm getting the same problems as before for some reason, it now keeps booting with the new version of windows 7 what I just installed. By the way, while I'm here can anyone recommend some good Burning software? Thanks.

 

[CARLOS]

Hello again folks, sorry to bother you all again. I've decided to take MarkE19s, EndlessWaves, and others on this post, and go with Windows 10. I've downloaded on to a CD/DVD and tried to install it, but I'm getting the same problems as before for some reason, it now keeps booting with the new version of windows 7 what I just installed. By the way, while I'm here can anyone recommend some good Burning software? Thanks.

Why have you burned to a CD ? just use a USB thumbstick much quicker and also follow what i said in my previous post about formatting

 

[thinlizzy]

Why have you burned to a CD ? just use a USB thumbstick much quicker and also follow what i said in my previous post about formatting

Thanks for your interest CARLOS. I thought about using a USB stick, but I haven't got a clue on how to do it.

 

[thinlizzy]

Why have you burned to a CD ? just use a USB thumbstick much quicker and also follow what i said in my previous post about formatting

H'i again CARLOS, I took your advice and used a USB stick. I'd never done this before, so I googled it and took it from there. It was much easier than expected really, and I'm now up and running with windows 10. So I thank you for that CARLOS. Much appreciated.
Dave.

 

[Atomic77]

Hmm I would think a more valid choice if not windows 10 would be Windows 8.1. It is newer than Windows 7 and would be more likely to work. Just about everybody is Windows 10 now unless your a apple person.