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My friend recently bought a new TOSHIBA Satellite C855D-S5340 laptop, and I offered to replace his Windows 8 OS using the Windows 7 disk I have.

I was able to get it to read the Windows 7 bootable USB I made, and the OS installed mostly without a problem, except that no drivers for the laptop were installed besides the basic ones windows installs.

I've never had this issue before, and if some drivers didn't get installed right away, Windows Update would take care of them. I have searched the Toshiba website for the model in order to find the latest drivers, but installing them seems to have no effect. The graphics are low-res and bloated. It's WiFi is not working (I had to use my own USB WiFi Card).

I'm a bit embarrassed because I've formatted plenty of computers for friends, but I'm suddenly not feeling like such a "Superuser" anymore! Could any real superusers out there lend me a hand?

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  • Windows 7 32-bit or 64-bit?
    – Luke
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 4:25
  • I forgot to mention I am using Windows 7 32-bit.
    – Atlantic
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 4:55
  • Followup to the answers below: Which graphic option is installed on this laptop? Does it match what the Toshiba site is offering but doesn't install? Graphics chip should be viewable from the bios.
    – jdh
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 15:00
  • The laptop does have the same graphics chip as listed in the specs. I am able to install the drivers, but I notice no change.
    – Atlantic
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 16:52
  • I should note, additionally, that the other drivers provided by Toshiba do not seem to install correctly. That include the WiFi driver and SD Card reader driver.
    – Atlantic
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 16:54

4 Answers 4

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If the windows 8 drivers from the Toshiba website aren't working (there don't appear to be any drivers in the windows 7 category), you could try using the hardware manufacturer's drivers.

In the case of the video drivers that would be here and searching for Radeon HD 7310 drivers. The search results: for Windows 7 (32-bit) and Windows 7 (64-bit) both produce the same result, I'm guessing it's tool which will verify your hardware before letting you download the real drivers. Still worth a shot though.

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  • Unfortunately, attempting to install that driver software results in the message, "The version of your graphics adapter is not supported". Thank you for supplying the link though.
    – Atlantic
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 5:13
  • @Atlantic - The message you recieved simpyl means your graphic card is no longer supported and no new drivers will be created by AMD. Which the last supported drivers work for you, you are simply, out of luck.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 16:43
  • Any luck with this one (same graphics chip, different notebook manufacturer)? support.lenovo.com/en_AU/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS030165
    – Luke
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 22:32
  • Yes, I was able to get the Lenovo driver to work. I was also able to find the WiFi driver by searching for the VEN and DEV numbers listed under Hardware IDs in Device Manager. I should be able to find the remaining drivers this same way. Thank you for the assistance! I'm considering this answered.
    – Atlantic
    Commented Feb 7, 2013 at 4:38
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You might have previously installed windows with a vendor supplied Windows disk, not a retail version of windows. The retail version includes the most common drivers. The Vendor version of windows includes almost all of the drivers for the devices they include for that hardware. Also a vendor's version of windows will (usually) confirm that the hardware is the same platform and won't let you install on a non-vendor platform (e.g. a Dell Windows 7 install disc will pop up an fatal install error when tried on a HP laptop etc). And since it came with a windows 8 license, you can downgrade to 7 legally. Its probably easiest if you used a Toshiba windows 7 disc, so that you don't have to purchase a retail COA product key.

After the installation, verify which devices don't have devices loaded from the control panel's device manager dialog. Those with missing drivers will have a yellow question mark. You can also check the display device's driver to make sure its the Toshiba driver, not the generic Microsoft VGA driver.

The Toshiba display driver is available from this link. It includes both 32 and 64 bit drivers for the AMD graphics card for this machine (check in the bios to make sure that's what you have). The install should run the setup and then reboot. Once it reboots, right click on the screen to make sure the display properties have now expanded.

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  • Actually I've used an HP windows 7 on my Lenovo... Didn't come with any drivers or bloat ware though, just a core windows install
    – Simon Sheehan
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 4:31
  • In the past, I've only installed from this retail disk. When I use the troubleshoot feature in Control Panel > Devices, Windows detects a plethora of missing drivers. Even though I have Windows Update set to find the drivers, it can't seem to find them. Additionally, the drivers on the page did not work for me, I have installed them all.
    – Atlantic
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 5:00
  • @Atlantic - Missing drivers are easy to fix you just download the drivers. Generic drivers should work fine.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 16:42
  • I have downloaded all of the drivers provided in the link, but unfortunately still was unable to get the downloaded drivers to work. I have tried to use the display driver from the Toshiba website, the AMD driver specific to the model, and the AMD auto-detect utility. None of these have worked, and Device Manager still displays "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter".
    – Atlantic
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 16:49
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After you have completely formatted the drive and installed windows7, all you need to do is install the windows 7 drivers for the laptop model that came with windows7 factory installed. So if your model that came with windows 8 is C855D-S5340 , there will be a model that will have a very similar number and that identifies that it came with windows7 installed rather than windows8. More than likely, the "S" will be another letter and all the rest will be the same. Just use the windows 7 drivers from this model and you will be all good

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  • This is great advice, I will keep this in mind next time I do a format. I'm not sure if I'll want to switch to Windows 8 for a while.
    – Atlantic
    Commented Apr 21, 2013 at 17:45
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Win7 is driver complete once you get online, providing drivers when you run all rounds of IMportant and Optional Windows Updates, after enabling auto driver updating: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2803-device-installation-settings.html. To get online plug in by wire for which the installer will provide the driver 70% of the time (until we get a SP2) while wireless driver only comes during install 50% of the time. Have both in your backup from the Toshiba Support Downloads webpage so you can install either to get online quickly to do your Updates.

After all rounds of Updates are done (keep going back for more) only one or two ddrivers will still be missing which you can import from the Toshiba webpage for your model.

More tips for getting a perfect Clean Reinstall: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html#post1839164

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