Unable to boot/install OS

[_MeIsAndy_]

I received an Omen 30L desktop from a friend who was no longer using it and wanted to give it some new life. He had pulled the drive out (understandable) so I installed a new drive (1TB Lexar M.2 drive in the slot below the processor), and created a bootable USB w/ the Windows Media Creation Tool. Inserted the USB drive and booted the Omen. I went into the setup to ensure that the USB drive was first in the boot order. So far so good.

Rebooted to boot from the USB drive, the Omen logo and the spinning circle below starts spinning, but doesn't complete a full circle and it freezes. I can leave it for as long as I want and nothing changes. Frozen solid.

OK, maybe there was something wrong with the installer. So I created an install of ventoy on the USB drive, dropped the Windows ISO and an Ubuntu ISO onto the drive and rebooted. Had to register keys for ventoy, which went fine. I can now select the OS to boot.

If I select Windows 11, I get the Windows logo instead of the Omen logo, otherwise the result is the same. The circle tries to circle, stops, computer is frozen.

Reboot and try Ubuntu. Select that I want to Try/Install Ubuntu and it tries to boot. This time I just get a black screen and the system is frozen.

I have reseated the RAM, reseated the GPU. All tests in the onboard system diagnostics pass.

Anyone have any other steps to try?

[TheOldMan]

That device is supported by the HP Cloud Recovery tool.  You should be able to reinstall all of the software using the instructions found here:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_4511095-4511141-16

[_MeIsAndy_]

Thank you for the suggestion, but this freezes in the exact same way as other options do. It begins to boot to the USB drive, the Omen logo comes up, the spinning circle starts to spin and things freeze. I am unable to boot into anything beyond the text base GUI for ventoy.

Recap of things I've tried:

1. HP Cloud Recovery
2. Creating a USB drive w/ the Microsoft Media Creation Tool
3. Created an Windows 11 installation USB w/ the Windows 11 ISO downloadable from Microsoft
4. Created a bootable drive w/ ventoy and attempted to boot into the following OS ISOs
   1. Windows 11
   2. Ubuntu Desktop 24
   3. A minimal Linux distro based on SUSE Linux
   4. Hirens BootCD
5. Attempted to boot w/ a single RAM stick in slot 1, tried 1x for each stick
6. Reseated the GPU to make sure something there wasn't causing an issue

All attempts have met the same sort of freeze-up.

[TheOldMan]

I suggest that you try the Diagnostics routine, to see if there are any issues.  If that comes back with all items passing, then IDK what the problem is.

To run the Diagnostics routine, Start tapping the Esc key BEFORE starting the PC and then press the start button.
Keep tapping the Esc key until a popup menu shows. Then pick Diagnostics from that popup menu, F2.
Report back with the results.

[_MeIsAndy_]

I have used the built-in diagnostics (the same diagnostics that you would press F2 to run when the system doesn't see a boot drive) and all items indicate that they pass.

I have also downloaded the HP Diagnostics UEFI and run the more complete suite of tests. These took 3+ hours and seemed to be a more complete test. The results were the same with all systems indicate that they have passed.

As you can see, this seems to defy any logical explanation and I'm at a complete and total loss...

[TheOldMan]

Yes, I agree.  It is unusual for that to happen with all systems passing.

I looked at the original post again and noticed this is with a 1TB Lexar M.2 drive.  IDK the specs on that drive VS what HP put in there.  HP's drive is a 1TB PCIe 4x4 NVMe M.2 Internal SSD part #5R8Y0AA#ABA.

Just for more info and to verify, try a regular SATA hard drive instead of the M.2 drive that is being used.  See if the install than goes past the logo.  It might be that the Lexar drive is causing the problem.