Driver issue HPz620

[Seedger]

Purchased an HPz 620 with Linux mint 20; removed linux after reading that to install win 7 it had to go. Since then I have failed with every attempt to load win 7 pro X64. A screen comes up and says no drivers. Have been to HP support NO drivers there either, Have talked to HP Support  who gave me an address for hp drives, wonderful except I don't need every driver made. Or do I?  My level of competency is NEGATIVE 2 on a scale of 20.  I have a good friend who has a degree in computer science he  is a programmer and builds computers from the ground up; he worked for 3 hours searching for drivers to no avail

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

See if either set of storage drivers I zipped up and attached below allows W7 to see the hard drive.

Download and unzip the drivers I attached to their folders.

Copy the folders to a USB flash drive.

Plug the flash drive in the z620.

Boot from the W7 installation media, and when you get to where it asks you for a driver, click on the Load driver option and browse to the first file folder you copied to the flash drive.

If you check the box, it will only include the compatible driver.

Click Next, and W7 should begin to install.

If that folder doesn't contain the right storage driver, then try the second one.

[Seedger]

"No Joy!" more sorrow. A new message pops up; "

To continue installation use the load driver option to install 32 bit, and signed 64 bit drivers. Installing an unsigned  64 bit device driver is not supported and might result in an unusable windows installation. 

Wonderful! 

two question if I buy windows 8  would this resolve the problem?

Another option i've stumbled across would be to install a hard drive that already contains windows 7 from an HPz600 would that be a workable option?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Crazy.

Those drivers came from your PC's support page.

I would try and pop in the drive from the z600 and see what happens.

It has a fairly decent chance of working.

Then do the free upgrade to W10, and you can clean install W10 x64 on any drive you want afterward, probably without the need for drivers.

See this link for how to still get the free upgrade to W10...You have to do an in-place upgrade from W7.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-you-can-still-get-a-free-windows-10-upgrade/

It can't be a clean install unless the PC had been previously upgraded to W10.

Another idea you can try is that the PC may have a W8.1 product key in the BIOS, as most of those PC's came with W8.1 Pro or W8.1 Pro with downgrade rights to W7 Pro.

Download the W8.1 Pro ISO file from the link below, and use the Microsoft tool I zipped up and attached below to transfer the ISO file to a DVD or usb flash drive so that it is bootable.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows8ISO

If the PC has a W8.1 Product key in the BIOS, it won't ask you to enter a product key during the installation process.

You can also do the free upgrade to W10 from W8.1 pro too.

[Seedger]

I'm about to decide to throw the computer into the trash can lose 300$ and start over. As I said in my first post I'm computer ignorant. Perhaps that was understating the problem.  As a photographer I use sd cards all the time. Using an USB flash drives not so much. So I order 2 new 32 gb flash drives from Amazon and I'm think, "yes baby" now I've got space to download anything.

NOT TRUE because guess what 32gb is not really 32 gigabytes it's 4gb. Something to do with FAT32 filing system. Also I left out that I don't have a fast modern day windows system to down load things to. At this moment I'm using my Apple to write this comment. What I'm using is an old Toshiba netbook made in 2011. With windows 7 Starter on it. I've seen snails move faster!

Now I was able to copy win 8.1 on to an old hard drive I have and I hoping although at this point I have no faith in anything working to also copy the win loader as well. My question is will the HPZ620 recognize the hard drive and locate the win8.1 file?

I've decided that what I'm attempting to do is the equivalent of building a "Stairway to Heaven " great music; but as for a stairway impossible for me to build for I lack the tools and the Knowledge. I'm blocked or stopped at ever turn !

I can't thank you enough for you advice and help with this problem.

Sincerely,

Steven 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Steven:

Hopefully since W8.1 is a much newer OS it should have the drivers included to find the hard drive.

All you need to do to have your flash drives use 32 GB of space is to format them with the NTFS file system.

Plug the flash drive in the PC, right click on it, select Format and it will give you some formatting options.

Select NTFS.