HP Envy 17 Notebook BIOS and Hardware questions, "Optical drive not found"

[bearozo]

Hi I am new here and have some qustions about my Envy from 2013. Everything works fine except nothing seems to find the optical drive, doestnt matter what I boot with rescue USB (Hirens or Systemrescue) or from my Linux mint19.1 installation no hardware info programs finds it (lshw, lsscsi etc.) I asked the seller and he claims it worked fine (i came with windows 10 and I never tried the DVD before installing Linux mint) I even bought a new drive to be sure it spins up and sounds normal. The machine has the inSyde BIOS F.69.

So my questions are, would a BIOS flash to F.70 help ? and were can I get it ? (HP says there is nothing to download for my model).

[Huffer]

Its very possible to burn out the SATA port where the optical drive connects, usually by hotswapping it while the computer is running. The Product number you provided is not returning any information so please check again. A BIOS update is highly unlikely to resurrect the optical drive. 

Download the UEFI diagnostics bootable thumb drive and use it to test for the optical drive. If it does not show up there and you have tried a known good drive then the SATA port for the optical drive is dead. 

https://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/hpsupportassistant/pc-diags.html

[bearozo]

It is not n UEFI install (did not work). 

[Huffer]

Don't try to install it make the bootable thumb drive. 

[bearozo]

I have an non UEFI install, I have booted in booth UEFI and legacy mood with different USB sticks booth in UEFI and in Legacy ! and the drive does not show, I have tried 3 different drives which all work in other laptops (tried in 2 different).

I have an 480Gb SSD as main-drive and a mechanical 500 Gb as storage, 16Gb RAM and an i7 4700MQ.

It originally had an i5 and 8Gb RAM and 750Gb SATA  https://support.hp.com/se-sv/product/hp-envy-17-j000-notebook-pc-series/5354973/model/6383158/docume...

I have tried booting with just one drive (SSD) no diffrence. So a BIOS upgrade is all I can come up with at the moment. In the BIOS fault log there has been an 03F0 since 2013 in a long list.

[Huffer]

03F0 is typically a hard drive error. 

2 other possibilities are HP Diagnostics for Windows and Vision Diagnostics both of which are found here:

https://www.amazon.com/Genuine-HP-Chromebook-Pavilion-741553-850/dp/B078PR9C54/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=7...

Its an Envy 17-j000 and I had one of those several years back. Mine came with Windows 8 and definitely was capable of UEFI. 

Should have a secure and legacy boot option in the BIOS. 

[bearozo]

Yes it boots in booth booth UEFI and Legacy and 03F0 is when harddrive fails yes 🙂 But I stil would like to get the F.70 BIOS and flashtools for it just to try. So far any OS i booted to refuses to see any optical drive i tried everyhing else works fine even an external USB floppydrive and finger print. (That link takes me to amazon 🙂 )

[Huffer]

Sorry wrong link. HP Diagnostics for Windows:

http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp95501-96000/sp95559.exe

The latest posted BIOS is F.69 so I am not sure where you saw that there is an F.70 version.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-envy-17-j000-notebook-pc-series/5354973 

There is an F.70 BIOS posted for the 17-j100 series but that is not your laptop. 

[bearozo]

I figured tha could be the case that F.69 is the latest available 😞  I will have to make a bootable USB with windows to run the .exe (mayby possible on the Hirens). 

[bearozo]

I now tried booting from bootable CD with booth hard drives removed and no USB attached or anything else, it cannot find the optical drive using F9 for boot options so must be faulty MB or other hardware not the drive I tried three different ones that all work in other laptops (before and after trying them in the Envy).

Giving up 🙂