HP DM4-3050US dard drive replacement after creating System Recovery on USB the USB drive won't boot

[nickcbags]

Hi I have an HP Pavilion DM4-3050US and I'm trying to replace the hard drive. The stock drive was working but it was starting to make some not so nice clicking noises so I backed everything up to a 1TB externnal drive then used the Recovery Media Creation program to make a one-time boot environment. I chose to make a USB boot environement and sure wish I had selected the other option to make DVD boot disks because the USB drive will not boot and I've tried a bunch of things to no avail. So, the details are, the USB system recovery creation worked ok. It required a USB drive with at least 15mb so I purchased a PNY 16GB usb 3.0 jump drive. The system recovery program formatted the USB drive ok and the process of creating the system restore environment finished without errors. But, when I tried to boot with it, it won't boot. I went into the bios and pressed F9 to select the boot source and indeed, the PNY 16GB USB drive shows up but it doesn't boot when selected. I went back into the bios and spent an hour changing around the boot order but that did not fix anything either. The USB drive does indeed have 15gb worth of files on it. I then tried to use the DISKPART utility to inspect the attributes on the USB drive and it says it says, "Boot Disk : No". I used DISKPART to select the disk and volume on the USB drive and then used the ACTIVE command to make it bootable and the command returned, seeming to work, but the Boot Disk attribute still says "NO." The OS is Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium. I thought there might be a way to enter a bios legacy mode but if there is, I'm not finding it. The bios on this sytem has very few choices. My guess is the USB drive will boot and there's just something simple I need to do so the system recognizes it. Another option is to somehow regain the one-time Recovery option (which may not even be possible) and then create a set of recovery DVDs. Thanks in advance. NickCBaggs.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Try booting from the USB 2 port your notebook has.

If that doesn't work either...

This site claims to have genuine, unadulterated W7 ISO files for download...

https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/67-microsoft-windows-iso-download-tool

Click on the link labeled Windows ISO Downloader.exe

You can use either the:

 Win 7 Home SP1 or the (Retail version, but the  OEM key on your PC's case will work with it)

 Win 7 Home SP1 COEM (This version would be for what HP would have used--System Builder)

N is for European Union (EU) countries.

K is for South Korean markets.

Then you can use this tool to transfer the file to a 4 GB USB flash drive or a DVD.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool

Then go to your notebook's support page to install the drivers and available software for it.

[nickcbags]

This workaround worked. Thank you very much for posting it and nice job crafting such a brief but thorough solution.

It is disappointing I had to go to a Cambodian site to get a Windows 7 image. Through this process I find Microsoft and HP are lacking in their support responsibilities. This workaround has me re-imaging my laptop with an OS that I worry may have somehow been manipulated with a root kit and a few months the bad guys will comendeer it for some ill purpose.

I get it though. MS and HP don't want this OS out there anymore and, given all the malware and threats, and all these bad things that people are doing with our computers nowdays, I can't blame them. I developed antivirus software for eight years for both McAfee and Norton, starting in the '90's when we only had three classifications of viruses to worry about. Now there are dozens of threat types. So many, the customers don't care what they are anymore--they just want them gone. It's why I can't work in this industry any longer, because the problems have only become worse--not better. I can only guess MS and HP have engineered clever ways to break the Recovery Manager on legacy OS versions which seems to me what's happening becasuse, for the life of me, I tried everything to get the recovery media creation process to work as designed. Of course they'll probably never admit they're doing it but I made the USB boot drive and exhausted every option to get it to boot but it simply will not boot. Strange? I can make the same USB stick boot with other utilities. Tried recovery DVD creation but it gave a goffy error--like "we're having trouble with media creation" or something which gives no indication of how to remedy. Tried again with everything turned off and in safe mode but nope. My conclusion, FWIW (probably nothing) is, either the Recovery Manager test team sucked (unlikely) or this program is somehow disables itself at end of OS support life. 

Time is a resource that should not be abused but these manufacturers are not respecting the time we waste trying to get their software to work. Wouldn't it be great if, instead of wasting two days with this program, I could run the Recovery Manager and it would say, "sorry, we've disabled this feature, and we know that's disappointing, but we wanted you to know because Nickcbaggs wasted two days trying to get it to work and we just don't want you wasting your time too." Hmm, maybe I'll fly to Cambodia to pickup that image. Make lemonade out of this and see some of those temples. Thanks again for your help!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Well, according to those guys, they have found a way to get directly to the MSDN servers to obtain genuine ISO files.

So, I can only take them at their word.

Others have used this site and no one has reported any ill effects.

You never can be 100% sure though, I guess.

I hate recovery media unless it consists of one plain OS DVD and one Application and Driver DVD.

These kits that have everything rolled up into one set of DVD's or a USB flash drive have too many issues.

Microsoft is of no help.  I don't see what the big deal is. 

The OS is useless without the product key, so I can't for the life of me understand why they don't provide direct links to download the ISO files by entering any valid product key, not just a full retail one.