Refurbish Envy 27 with Bad Hard Drive

[RetiredPCFixer]

I tried booting my Envy 27.  It said the hard drive had an imminent failure.  Geek Squad quoted me a price to fix.  I thought I would try myself.  Following questions:

 - What hard drive should I buy?

 - What version of Windows should I get?

 - How can I get a factory reset?

 - Is it worth messing with?

it has a great screen.  Hate to just junk it.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

For a hard drive, I recommend this one:

Amazon.com: Western Digital 1TB WD Blue SA510 SATA Internal Solid State Drive SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s,...

The PC came from HP with Windows 8.1.

Did you upgrade to W10 when it was available?

If so, you can make a bootable W10 installation flash drive with the media creation tool from the link below.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

Boot from the installation flash drive and after you get past the 'Install Now' screen you will be asked to select the version of W10 you want to install.  Select W10 Home.

Then you will be asked to enter a product key.  Select the 'I don't have a product key' option and W10 will install and then activate after you are connected to the internet.

If you had not previously upgraded to W10, you can download the plain W8.1 64-bit ISO file from the link below.

Download Windows 8.1 Disc Image (ISO File) (microsoft.com)

Use the free Rufus utility to transfer the ISO file to a USB flash drive so that it is bootable.

Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

Set up the Rufus utility exactly as you see it in the illustration for Windows installations.

Your other option to reinstall W8. would be to purchase recovery media for your PC from this vendor at the link below:

Computer Surgeons - Windows 8.1 64 Bit (14AM1ACA602) - USB Recovery Kit G8W25AV For HP ENVY Recline ...

[RetiredPCFixer]

Paul,

Thanks for all of the good suggestions.  I am getting ready to head out the door to church.  So, I will try to absorb everything and give it a go later this week.

I appreciate the help.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.