Locked BIOS Preventing SSD Upgrade and several other issues

[zeburr]

Have you made any further progress on this!?

I'm struggling just to even get win7 on a new SSD. I'm pulled out the old HDD and put in a new SSD and I can run the test in the BIOS but win7 installation doesn't recognize a drive.  Anyone have this problem?

[Nerdist]

Zeburr, have you considered using Acronis? I have found success doing exactly that.

[Nerdist]

Hello Everyone,

My first official post here.  I purchased a HP DV7 1135 NR with VistaPro installed on a 250GB Sata HDD. This laptop has two Sata ports (primary/secondary).  I have learned that the laptop will only see an OS on the primary port and you cannot change the boot options to see the secondary port.  I used Acronis to mirror my other HDD with Win7 to my new SSD with success.   That being said, I have a problem.

Currently it takes 55 seconds to boot up, with the latest BIOS loaded it will not allow Boot Order changes. If I hit Esc on post and choose Boot Options pointing to my Network Drive it boots in 10 secs.  When it does boot up my processes are fast and efficient. 

Does anyone have any ideas on what I should do to resolve besides using a bootloader?

Thank you for any time spent on this post.

[Quadmethyl]

I share your frustration Stonewall. I recently bought a dv7-7047cl. I tried to install a Sandisk SSD and it failed terribly. The BIOS will not even recognize the drive. However, if I try and install it in my older dm3-1130us which is a much less powerful laptop but, I assume an older less restricted BIOS, it has no problem recognizing the SSD and letting me install Windows 7 on it. If I cannot eventually find a work around to install this SSD then I will never buy another HP product. This really has me fired up!

The link to my problem is here:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Other-Notebook-PC-Questions/DV7-7047cl-Upgrade-to-Sandisk-Extreme-240GB...

[Earthlark]

Not sure how your dv7 compares to the Envy dv6, which I have, but from what I remember when looking at dv7s before, they're fairly similar.  Also, I don't really know if this will help at all since I'm using an mSSD  (mSATA) rather than regular SSD.

The setting that I needed to change was with IRST (Intel Rapid Storage Technology) (Windows 8).  I'm guessing this won't make any difference for your problem and is probably a wholly separate issue, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.

Along with that, if nothing works to get your SSD going and you're stuck with the machine but want increased speed, one alternative (if you have an mSSd, which I think you do if you have an Intel processor) is to install an mSSD for the system and then use HDD for storage.  My dv6 came without anything in the mSSD slot (usually comes with small mSSD for the cache), so I bought a Crucial m4 256GB mSATA SSD, put it in and changed some settings with IRST.  System boots about 5 or 6 seconds and is fairly fast.

Hope things work out!

[JakeMarchant]

I am having simillar issues whilst trying to put MacOSX on my system... I found this on another forum which I think will help with your problem...

Hope it helps.

Quoting OsbourneVernonL

DId you do any research before coming to here to find out if it is at all possible to switch modes? If im not mistaken Hp has been doing this with there advanced bios modes on laptops for a while now especially there non high performances line. Your main issues seems to be the bios and the lack of options, I did some digging and found this post about similar issues others have but be warned doing or following any suggestions from there as at your own risk espicially since you can not manually activate that  feature in the bios your self.

http://www.askvg.com/how-to-change-sata-hard-disk-mode-from-ide-to-ahci-raid-in-bios-after-installin... 

good luck.