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Question

What is wrong with my Hp pavilion g6?

Sep 27, 2015 11:02AM PDT

Greetings everyone i'm all new here Happy
So basically i have this kinda big problem that's followed by a pretty long story, please if you can take a few minutes to answer this i will be hugely thankful.
A while ago i changed my laptops 320GB hard drive disk ( hdd ) with a 160GB one, then i knew that it's definitely not enough for the laptop to actually run on windows 8, so i moved to windows 7. Since then, almost everything has stopped working including the drivers ( mainly ), some features, keyboard buttons etc. Then i switched back to my 320GB hdd but absolutely nothing has changed, so i figured out that it has something to do with windows 7. Now the thing i really want to know is what would happen if i change back to windows 8? would it make my laptop work properly again as it was before? i don't want to waste money unless i'm perfectly sure. I would be EXTREMELY grateful for you guys if you could at least recommend anything that would bring my laptop back to life!
P.S : When i made the first change i formatted the 320GB hdd unfortunately :/

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Sounds like a driver problem.
Sep 27, 2015 11:15AM PDT

I see you say "almost everything has stopped working including the drivers ( mainly )". That could possibly explain everything you're seeing. Please describe what you did when you switched hard drives regarding how you got Windows installed.
The way I would've done it would've been to back the HD up to an external hard drive, switch the HDs, then restore. Another way would be to use the discs that came with the computer to restore to factory settings. However I suspect that you did something different from this. Right?

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Abosolutely different.
Sep 27, 2015 1:20PM PDT

I haven't backed up anything unfortunately, just removed the actual one and replaced it with the other, an empty one actually, then installed Windows via cd.

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The last Windows on CD was Windows XP.
Sep 27, 2015 1:27PM PDT

That must be a typo.

And then you have the issue that Windows won't have much working after you install it. The work that must be done after the OS install is causing folk that are new to this to melt down. Some lash out, others buy an Apple.

So, in short, after I install Windows I have drivers and apps that are all over the map as to the exact steps.

Once you do this a few dozen times it gets easier but even I won't do it anymore unless paid. That is, use the restore media to avoid all the work.

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That's the problem. You need to download the proper drivers
Sep 27, 2015 1:28PM PDT

...from the HP website for your particular make and model. OR if you have the discs to restore to factory settings, you can use them. You can't just install Windows from an ordinary disc without getting into trouble with drivers.

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Could be.
Sep 27, 2015 2:04PM PDT

Sadly i don't have any discs, but i'll try to figure something out, maybe installing Windows 8 and then see what happens, since the laptop was originally came out with Windows 8. Makes sense i guess.

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Answer
win7 drivers
Sep 27, 2015 12:10PM PDT

did you go to the computer manufacturers website to see if there were any win7 drivers for your specific computer model? If not then that is where you need to go. If they do not have drivers, then there will be issues and would be best to go back to win8. 160 gig drive is plenty big enough to run win8. It only needs around 20 gigs.

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Most of them don't work
Sep 27, 2015 1:27PM PDT

I did go to the manufacturers website indeed but most of the drivers i download don't work, i often get : This device cannot start ( code 10 ) or This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device ( code 31 )

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need full model number not series
Sep 27, 2015 1:35PM PDT

need the full model number of the computer

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Which again is proper. Example follows.
Sep 27, 2015 1:38PM PDT

A new to installing Windows person installs the OS, looks and finds the WiFi isn't working, tries to install the WiFi driver and gets hit with Codes 10, 31 and others.

What happened? They likely didn't get the install order right. That is, I need to install the motherboard chipset package before the WiFi. I also may have to install some USB package before WiFi on some models.

Finally there's a NOT A DRIVER APP that controls turning on the WiFi card which I find seasoned installers forget.

-> And sadly no, I don't know the exact steps for your laptop. With thousands of models today I can only offer a guide and advice. Again, this is where restore media wins the race.

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Seems reasonable.
Sep 27, 2015 2:06PM PDT

I will try the restore media as you stated, thank you for your time.