Advise on installing Win8.1 using an external DVD drive

[AlwysL8]

I have an HP Pavilion 17 Notebook PC .

My system crashed and I bought the Recovery Disks from HP for Windows OS 8.1 (64-bit)

When I tried installing the recovery disks, they wouldn't load all the way through.   I thought it was the Hard Drive, so I replaced it.  When I tried installing the same disks to the new hard drive, it failed again.    So, I thought it was the disks.   I then downloaded Win8.1 (64-bit) from Microsoft.   When I tried installing the new recovery disks, I got an error code of 0x80070017 (the file may be corrupt or missing).   Now I'm thinking it might be the DVD drive.

I did try downloading the OS on a flash drive, but I couldn't get the (f12 key) computer to recognize the flash drive so I could boot from it.

What I'm wondering is if I should get an external DVD drive so I can install the recovery disks from that.    But, since this would boot from USB....   would it be recognized just like the flash drive?

Thanks in advance!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

To boot from the USB flash drive, you have to turn on the PC, tap the ESC key to get the menu of options, and from that, select the F9 boot options menu.

Select the USB flash drive and press the enter key.

When booting from a DVD you have to go into the BIOS enable legacy mode and disable secure boot.

See this link for the settings to change.

https://www.support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03736054/

Follow the same procedure to boot from a DVD, but select the internal or legacy DVD drive, and press the enter key.

[AlwysL8]

Thank you so much for your advice!      Can I ask you one more question about your advice.

I did try and boot the flash drive by using the F9 key, but it doesn't show "boot from USB flash drive... it only shows   "Boot from EFI file"

I will be trying your advice soon on the DVD option and I will let you know.

THANKS!

Sandy

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome, Sandy.

If you are only seeing the boot from EFI file you may also have to enable legacy mode and disable secure boot in order to boot from the flash drive in your model as well.

With legacy mode enabled, you should see two listings of boot devices.  Legacy and UEFI.

There should be a legacy USB flash drive (sometimes called a diskette on key) and a DVD drive.