HP Pavilion dv7-7030us won't boot when ATA Security Set Password is enabled

[Jeffery1206]

Hi, I recently purchased a Samsung 860 EVO hard drive and upgraded my Pavilion dv7-7030us.  On every other laptop I've ever used, there is a BIOS setting to enable the ATA Security Set Password to encrypt the hard drive. This unit does not have an option in BIOS. On some desktops, I found a similar issue where no BIOS function was available, and using hdparm via a Linux boot thumb-drive with the following command enabled the password function "sudo hdparm --user-master u --security-set-pass 'PASSWORD' /dev/sda1". This has worked fine, but on my Pavilion dv7-7030us, the machine won't boot with a "no boot drive found" error.  If I remove the ATA Security Set Password, the drive boots normal.  I loaded the newest BIOS available on 4/19/2019 from the website, but it didn't help. Is there any way to enable a Self Encrypting Drive on the dv7-7030us?

Thanks,

Jeff

[WAWood]

@Jeffery1206 

The Windows boot loader files have to be unencrypted in order to boot the PC, and that will work even if the OS partition itself is encrypted.

You have the encryption option on some PCs because they come with a separate boot partition already enabled and preloaded, and when you do the "drive" encryption, it does not encrypt the boot loader partition.

But if you have your boot loader files inside the OS partition, forcing encyption or password protection on that will prevent Windows from booting.