HP ENVY M6 System Restore Error - The destination drive is not connected

[Trippy86]

Hi, I'm trying to help a friend fix his HP Envy M6 which was running windows 8.1 originally and he later upgraded to windows 10.

He wanted to start fresh so I used his restore disks to factory reset the laptop. We went through all 5 discs and it rebooted to a screen saying it was installing the software. During this process unfortunately the power lead was pulled out and the laptop turned off. I was unaware his battery was no good anymore. FACEPALM!

SO. I rebooted and as I thought it messed up the process and I needed to start again so I started again from disc 1. It starts the factory restore process and very quickly completes 

1. Reformatting the windows partition of your hard drive

2. Copying files required to restore the hard drive 

These both complete in the first minute then it sits there on 100% for about 5 minutes then it jumps to about 15% and displays the error "The destination drive is not connected", I press ok and it returns to the opening screen on the restore and is frozen and i have to hard reset the laptop.

Its stuck in this loop and I cant get out if it, I have reseated the hard drive numerous times, cable is connected but I cant even see anything in the bios about the hard drive. I plugged the hard drive into my laptop via USB and i can read and write with no problems and format.

When i plug it into my laptop after a failed restore attempt it does have a folder on it which I assume is the files it copied over.

I'm totally stuck, never had this issue before with a HP restore so I'm hoping someone has some ideas.

That is for the help

Trippy

[WAWood]

@Trippy86 

I didn't notice if you did this, but if not, you should WIPE the drive -- and try the restore again.

The fact that the restore goes so quickly implies that some cruft got left behind and it looks like that is preventing the new restore from working properly.

IF that does not work, then try a new hard drive -- that won't have any residue from a failed restore to contend with.

[Trippy86]

Hi

I already wiped the hadd drive, even tried reformatting the hard drive with EaseUS partition master. No problems and my PC can read it fine. Sadly the HP laptop still does the same

Not sure I have a spare 2.5" hard drive to use

[Trippy86]

Hi

Today I fitted a new SSD to the laptop, and it unfortunately doing exactly the same

Could the bios possibly need reinstalling ?

I've downloaded the latest bios and latest diagnostic utility but I have no idea how to install it from USB at boot

[WAWood]

@Trippy86 

I would doubt it, as I am still using an HP DV6 from many years ago, which is running Win10 v1903 without issues, and still is using the 2011 BIOS version -- since no newer one has been released.

However -- for a factory reset to work, the replacement drive has to be nearly the same capacity at the original drive -- which means you can't replace a 500GB HDD with a 240GB SSD and expect the restore to work.

[Trippy86]

But that's the thing, the original hard drive is fine I've proven that. So I'm totally stuck I don't know what to do

[Trippy86]

Any other ideas? I know the other hard drive works and I've even done a complete format still the same, surely it cant be the hard drive

What if I installed another version of windows and then did the recovery with my disks from within windows