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DrEddieS

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Windows 8

Purchased a Gateway DX 4870 with Windows 8 pre-installed. I wish to replace the drive with my windows 7 drive from another system or install a different hard drive.
When I try either I receive "Reboot and Select proper boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot Device and press a key. Pressing any key returns the same message. The BIOS is  P11-A0
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PreciousPigSystems

Sounds like a driver/bios issue being unable to find the old ones on your new computer. You'll need a new install of win 7 on your new laptop. Either downgrade in 8 to 7 or better still create a win 7 virtual machine and run it as a guest OS on windows 8 host!
Putting a W7 drive from another system is probably not a good idea. It requires some prepping for that to work.

To do it with different hard drive, you need to get into the BIOS first, and set the BOOT ORDER to CD/DVD as the first device. You might want to turn off FastBoot (QuickBoot) also.
Sometimes that can keep the BIOS from seeing anything but the original hard drive.
Then boot from the W7 install DVD and follow the prompts.
Make sure the W8 drive is disconnected, to keep from doing the wrong drive.


edit -- this is not a laptop.
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John
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When I place a "Clean" new hard drive in place of the original, and attempt to install Windows 7 from original disk. The same message appears.
Did you disable Secure Boot in the BIOS?

Additionally, some makers are apparently designing systems that are not backward compatible. Gateway is a cheaper consumer manufacturer and they may have saved money this way. So you may have to stick with Windows 8 on the computer you purchased.

.... Thinkpads_User
Avatar of Gary Case
You need to disable Secure Boot => this is forcing the BIOS to ONLY boot from the drive and partition associated with the Secure Boot setting.    This drive has a special partition that contains secure ID's of the allowable boot devices.     Since the drive (and it's corresponding list of bootable devices) isn't present, you can't boot from ANYTHING else -- disk drive, DVD, etc.

If you disable Secure Boot in the BIOS;  you should then be able to simply install a new drive;  boot from your Windows 7 DVD; and install the OS with no problem.
Thinkpads -- in this particular case, I don't think that's what's going on - the 4870 was sold in the past bundled with Windows 7.

The problem MIGHT be that the original poster is not booting from the DVD drive and needs to change the boot order in the BIOS.
... you MAY even be able to directly boot to your other hard drive that has Windows 7 on it.   Windows 7 is FAR more tolerant than its predecessors when it encounters different hardware.   HOWEVER ... it will likely require re-activation;  and if it's from a commercial system with a "BIOS-tied" OS, it will fail activation unless the previous system was from the same manufacturer (Gateway in this case).
>> Secure Boot

Thanks for the heads up. I haven't run into that one yet.   : )
and make sure the cd is bootable on a working PC
if not it will skip the cd to boot from
The choice I had was to purchase a new system - HP with Windows 7. I was then able to install SBS 2003 system with Windows. The possible solutions didn't work for me.

Thank You
if no more helps is needed - then please close the Q, info found in the help section
@DrEddieS - Thank you and thanks for following up here. I was happy to help you.

.... Thinkpads_User
I returned the unit to place of purchase. Their "Tech" had the same problem, and concluded the unit would not accept Windows 7 or SBS