Hard drive replacement

[dvdrttr14]

A friend passed away a few months ago and his wife is finally able to give up his laptop.  I've taken the hard drive out of his laptop and have given it to her in case she ever wants to revisit the information he had on the drive.

When I try to install a replacement hard drive, however, I can't get the system to recognize any NvMe m.2 drive.  I know the drives are good (tested both).  When I tried to research the issue, one solution said I need to download and extract the RST files to the USB boot disk.  Problem it, I enter all the information on HP's website and there is no option for these drivers (that I could find)) for this model number ... HP 17-by4061nr.

Any thoughts or suggestions?  I've been working on hardware for 30 years but haven't run into this problem before.

Thanks.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Try the drivers that I zipped up and attached below.

They should work for any PC with an Intel 11th - 13th Gen core processor.

Unzip the driver file to its folder.

Copy the folder to a USB flash drive.

When you get to the screen where Windows can't find any drives to install on, click on the Load Driver option.

Browse to the USB flash drive with the storage controller drivers on it.

If you check the box, it will only include the compatible driver.

Click Next, and Windows should install.

[dvdrttr14]

Thanks for the really fast reply.  I did as you noted with the file you attached.  The installation screen now displays the drive but it says I can't install the operating system on the drive because the drive has an MBR partition on it and it has to be GPT.

Before putting the drive in the laptop, I formatted it because I thought it wasn't reading it because there was data on it.  I don't remember any partitions on it but I can try to format it again.

The other odd thing is I have no mouse.  I've done literally hundreds of installations for family and friends (and I wipe my system frequently just to play around) and this it the first time I haven't had a mouse available in the setup screen.  I don't know if that tells you anything additional or nor.

Thanks again.  It's midnight here and I'm going to bed.  I try again in the morning. 

[dvdrttr14]

Paul, just thought of something and wanted to run it by you before you put more effort into helping me.  I'm going to clone the current hard drive to another SSD, and then should be able to use the recovery partition to restore drive C.  The drive works now ... I'm just trying to preserve it 'as is' for my friends widow. 

Thanks.

Dave Ritter

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, Dave.

I recommend that you use the HP cloud recovery tool on the new drive to factory reset the notebook.

 The HP cloud recovery tool will create a bootable recovery drive that will reinstall Windows, the drivers and the software that originally came with your PC.

Here is an info link for how to use the utility...You will need a 32 GB USB flash drive to create the recovery media with.

HP Consumer PCs - Using the HP Cloud Recovery Tool in Windows 11 and 10 | HP® Customer Support

You can download the HP cloud recovery tool from the Microsoft Store:

HP Cloud Recovery Tool - Microsoft Store Apps

Since you have to use the recovery tool on another PC, you will need to enter your PC's full product number in the tool's search window, which is 568B7UA#ABA.

The work around for the 'MBR partition on it and it has to be GPT' is fairly simple:

1. From inside Windows Setup, press Shift+F10 to open a command prompt window.
2. Type diskpart and enter.
3. Type list disk (look for your disk number, check the size of the disk) Should be Disk 0.
4. Type select disk <disk number> Example: select disk0 (select the disk you want to format)
5. Type clean.
6. Type convert gpt.
7. Close the command prompt window.
8. Continue the Windows Setup installation.

Why the mouse isn't working during the setup process, that I do not know.

I have never encountered that problem before, but you should be able to get around it by plugging in a USB mouse.

[dvdrttr14]

And thanks again.  I've been playing around this morning and changed my 'strategy.'  Instead of pulling the drive, I've simply copying all his files to a USB drive and will give that to her.  May sound corny but I wanted to give her the whole drive so she felt like she still had a little bit of her husband left (she could have plugged it into another system).  At least this way, she'll have all his files an pictures.

Side note that has nothing to do with this:  the guy never deleted anything.  He has more data in his user files than I have on my entire system  🙂   Never could convince him to delete things.  🙂

Thanks again for taking the time to help resolve this.

Dave

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime, Dave.

Glad to have been of assistance.

Cheers,

Paul