A few minor gotchas when installing Windows 8 RTM on my Lenovo W520 – may affect others with Optimus switchable graphics, or other Lenovos.
Issues encountered initially include:
- USB Boot drive not being picked up properly
- Stuck / hung on “Getting devices ready” during installation (94%)
After downloading Win 8 RTM from MSDN these steps worked for me:
- Install Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool
- Run the installed tool and browse to a Windows 8 RTM ISO (e.g. from MSDN) to create a bootable USB install
- Set the files on the USB drive to be read-only (this may not be necessary for everybody, but it helped for me; meant that it was picked up as a boot drive and didn’t get confused at the point of browsing for drives to install to)
- Go into the Bios – set the Display options to Integrated Graphics (not switchable, not Optimus) – this is important otherwise the install will hang at the “Getting devices ready” stage; the OOTB Win8 drivers can’t cope with the NVidia graphics card during install
- Plug your newly created USB stick into a non-USB 3.0 port (Any one that is NOT blue.. the eSATA combo port or the yellow always on port will do)
- Reboot, hit F12 to select the USB Drive
- Install as normal
- Switch your graphics back to Optimus
Hope that helps somebody!
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