Forbidden from updating my BIOS because I upgraded

[Merryjest]

I have a HP Pavilion a6123w Desktop PC. Keep this in mind. This will become terribly significant in just a bit.

My HD started showing signs of failure. I ordered a Terabyte drive to save my HD data, using Hirens to make a perfect clone.

Problems? You betcha. 

My case is too cramped to support the terabyte drive, the original 500 Gig drive, and the CD ROM- it also doesn't have enough connections at the moment. There was an easy workaround: Put Hirens BootUSB on a flash drive, boot from that with the two HDs connected, and do the transfer that way. Simple, right?

Nope. My BIOS version is Phoenix -AwardBIOS v6.0. It doesn't support USB booting.

So, it's just a matter of updating the BIOS, right?

You would THINK SO, wouldn't you?

I can't upgrade my BIOS (which would be needed to boot from a USB flash drive so I can start my HD cloning process to a new drive from the dying one) because... dun-dun-dunn... I upgraded from Windows Vista to Windows 7. The HP installer refuses to perform because the OS is not Vista (the turgid OS that the computer originally came with.) I even tried manipulating the exes within the installer, but that amounted to pretty much nothing as well.

Oh, well- you will say to yourself- why not go to the company website and download the files ffrom them?

That's a great idea! Except Phoenix - the company that made the BIOS- doesn't host its own files. Instead, it wants me to subscribe to this BiosAgent Plus so that I may be allowed to get my updated files. For $30. Are you fricking KIDDING me? Updating the BIOS on my Dell was a snap, but apparently to update this HP Pavillion, I have to perform dark sorcery.

So... I have TWO external Terabyte drives. One of them is an older LACIE, and the other one is a 3 terabyte WD. So I thought I would, instead, make an image of my old HD to the bigger TB drive (while using Hirens from the DVD drive, obviously), then swap the drives and recover the image from the TB external to the new TB internal.

You'd THINK. Except Hirens doesn't recognize the WD drive. It does, however, recognize the LACIE---

Which has 4 gigabytes free altogether because I use it as a media backup.

So... long story short? I'm saddled with copying 500 Gigabytes from the LACIE to the WD- a feat which will take about 19 hours by modest estimates-- so that I can then delete that off the LACIE. THEN, I get to image from the old HD onto the LACIE, which will probably take another 19 hours.. or longer, considering the rate is 13MB per second on data transfer... and then recover the image from the LACIE onto the new TB drive.

That's three days lost, and maybe more, thanks to the fact that HP will not let you update the bloody BIOS unless I'm running an inferior OS. Thanks, HP. At this point I'm considering looking up the Dell catalog.