INSTALL A SSD IN HP PAVILION dv7-4171-001

[OTTERCOMET]

Machine (HP Pavilion dv7-4171 us Entertainment Notebook) suffered a hard drive crash as a result of a local power failure and a dead battery. I did have a WD external HD backing up my data, so I didn't loose everything.

The SYSTEM INFO as a result of pressing ESC and F1 at start is as follows:

Product Number: XH108UA#ABA (the # may be a different character – hard to decipher)

Warranty Start Date: 08/31/2010

System Board ID: 1443

Product Configuration ID: 0584110000242B20000620100

System CT Board Number: PL8A0011ZZC0VN

BIOS Version: F.29

Processor Type: AMD Phenom(tm) II N850 Triple-Core Processor

Processor Speed: 2200MHz

Total Memory: 4096 MB

Primary Battery SN: 01826 08/23/2010

WLAN FCC ID: PPD-AR5B95H

I have the following questions (and I am an old guy - over 70 trying to learn about notebooks so please be gentle).

Will this system's BIOS support SSD?

I can't find my system image DVD but I have the Win10 media data on a DVD. If I change the BIOS to load from the DVD, is there anything else I have to do in order to have the new drive recognised?

Does booting from the DVD automatically rebuild my OS on the new SSD (so I just reset the BIOS to the hard drive after installation) or are there additional necessary steps to get me back in operation?

Are there other details I need to be aware of??

Thanks in advance for any and all support.

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

You are focusing too much on the BIOS and making it harder than it needs to be. So you have a Windows 10 DVD you made from the Microsoft Media Creation tool? Great. You just need to install the SSD in the hard drive bay which is under the access cover on the bottom of the laptop. Follow these pictures and replace the main hard drive with the SSD. The laptop absolutely will work fine with an SSD and requires no BIOS adjustments. You know the laptop can actually hold 2 hard drives, right? Or more precisely 2 x 2.5 inch SATA SSD or hard drive devices?

http://www.newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=page&id=32&chapter=0

Now you have the blank SSD in the laptop. Put the Win 10 DVD in the DVD drive. Tap esc as you power up to get a menu...F9 is select boot order. Choose the DVD drive as the boot source and go. Let the Windows 10 install run its course. Now you have a backup on the external hard drive. You can restore the old stuff to the new install. Drivers may be backed up in the C:/swsetup folder or they can be downloaded here at this site.

Get at least a 256 gig SSD and I recommend a Samsung 850 Evo but other brands are good, too.

If this is "the Answer" please click "Accept as Solution" to help others find it.  

[OTTERCOMET]

Thanks for the input. At the end of the second para. your indicated a site to download drivers but I don't see the URL. Could you please provide. 

After I moved all my data from the WD external drive, to a new computer, I formatted the WD drive so I could start a fresh backup on the new machine - as a result the directory you mentioned is long gone - my bad - but we learn by our mistakes.

[Huffer]

HP only posts the Windows 7 drivers here:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-pavilion-dv7-4100-entertainment-notebook-pc-seri...

Let's see what drivers you still need after Windows install and we can provide them to you buy device ID number. Windows 10 will likely pick up everything except the switchable graphics. 

This shows how to use the Windows 7 drivers in Windows 10. A little involved but known to work:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/amd-switchable-graphics-not-wo...

[OTTERCOMET]

I am a little slow in getting around to this, but I would like to thank you for your assistance. My HP Pavillion is up and running. I went with a 500GB WD SSD. Installation was very easy. My first attempt to install windows media failed at 78%. I looked closely at the DVD (one that had previously been recorded on, and noticed a slight scratch on the recording side. Pulled out a brand new (never used) DVD and retrieved another copy of the media from MS and that copy installed.  Reinstalled Office 360 and my Norton licence and everything is working fine.

with the SSD, this 7 year old notebook boots faster than the new Acer I bought when the HP failed - if I had known tht replacing the HD and getting the HP running again was as easy as it turned out, I would not have bought the ACER.

Again, thanks