Pavilion will not boot. Possible HD / MB failure

[Arewe]

Desktop will not boot.  Possible HD and motherboard failure. System will not boot to a factory window 7 CD and tried another HD I had and it gave a failure code 3f. The bios can see the HD.  It goes to HP screen at boot with the spining circle and then says windows failed to load restart system.  It will not boot into safe mode.  It will not restore from the function offered on trouble shooting screen. It say that no administrative accounts exist.  I have no backup cds, not sure they would work because I can't seem to boot from cd even when that is only device to boot from.  Any ideas or suggestions apperciated.  Need any more info please ask I will get it

Thanks

[iomare]

Hi,

You need to enable legacy boot in Bios and disable secure boot to be able to boot from Windows 7CD. This should be under the heading security in Bios.

You can try performing HP diagnostics at startup and perform a quick test of the system which will tell you if the hard drive has a problem.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03467259

You can download the media creation tool from Microsoft (on different computer) and run to create a bootable USB drive with Windows 10 on it. You can then use this drive to install Windows 10 on computer if you need to change hard drive. Windows 10 will automatically activate as long as you install the same version which was already on the PC (home or pro).

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Let me know if you need further help,

David

[Arewe]

I disabled the setting you suggested in BIOS. It will spin the CD and say loading files and the windows logo appears and says starting windows. It just freezes at that point and will not go any further.  Any other ideas would be appreciated.

Could I possibly try another hard drive and see if it will boot.

Thanks

[CF4]

Hi

If the DVD/CD spins up and could actually work then I would temporarily unplug the Hard Disk and see if the CD will actually work and present a useable screen.

[Arewe]

I unplugged the HD and the windows CD spun up.  The only problem was the keyboard and mouse stop working as soon as the first screen appears.  I can't do anything because of this. I have not tried to get windows 7 install cd to work with the HD plugged in, but I assume it will still disable the keyboard and mouse on boot up.  Any suggestions will be great. Thanks for all the help

The HD also failed the quick test, but I still believe I have a MB issue

thanks and Happy Holidays 

[CF4]

Hi

I believe your assessment is correct.

[SamirD]

I would try disconnecting the HD (or removing its power) and leave just the CD/DVD, 1 memory module (remove all the rest), and a keyboard (no mouse), and try a unix live cd of some sort that has a memory test.  

The tests to try are:

- To see if it will boot (if it can't, I'm with you on motherboard or maybe CPU)

- To see if it will pass a memory test (if it starts but fails with time, could be CPU thermaling and crashing or memory or motherboard)

[iomare · Accepted solution]

Most likely you have a hard drive problem.

Now as I suggested in the first post I would download media creation tool from Microsoft and run to create a bootable pendrive with windows 10 on it for installation.

The computer will not boot because the hard drive has failed, so at a certain point the installation fails. When you remove the hard drive the installation of Windows 7 continues until the first screen and then mouse and keyboard do not work. This could be because the Windows 7 installation disk does not natively support USB 3.0 ports and Skylake processors communicate through Extensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) to control usb 2.0 and Usb 3.0. Windows 7 does not nateviely support xHCI. 

Windows 10 supports xHCI and there should be no problem trying to install it.

You could try using the  "Windows 7* USB 3.0 Creator Utility" to create aa bootable pendrive with Windows 7 on it which will work with USB 3.0 ports.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25476/Windows-7-USB-3-0-Creator-Utility

Your hard drive has also failed the Fast Test so it needs to be replaced.

Hope it helps,

David

[Arewe]

Hello

Thanks for all the support. Here is a follow up just to let everyone know that the motherboard was fine and it was a bad hard drive. Windows 7 not supporting USB 3.0 was the issue and I used a windows 10 ISO file and was able to install windows 10 and all the USB ports worked.  

Sorry for for the late response.  The holidays and getting caught backup took away from time working on the old system.

considered solved

[SamirD]

Glad you got this fixed and it wasn't anything more difficult to replace than the hard drive.