Boot Device Not Found (3FO) After Restalling Windows 8 from Recovery Disks

[TechLobster123]

Hello,

The hard drive on my Envy dv7-7333cl recently died after upgrading my windows 8.1 to 10. I bought a brand new SSD and replaced the drive. I could not find the recovery disks I made when I got the PC, so I ordered new ones from HP as recommended from other threads with the understanding that they would be able to reinstall windows on the new drive. 

Since the shipping time was going to take a while, in the meantime I tried to reinstall Windows 8.1 using the official Windows 8.1 .iso from Microsoft. It seemed to install fine, read the product key automatically and everything but I couldn't get the machine to boot, so I decided to wait for the recovery disks from HP.

Well I got the disks a couple days ago, and reinstalled the factory image onto the new drive. Problem is that on restart, I get errors no matter what I try. The errors change depending on which of the steps I've tried below but I have never been able to boot to windows, except once when the Windows 8 BSOD 😞 loops and automatically restarts before I can even read it. 

These are the steps I have already tried:

- Performed a hard reset (power adaptor and battery removed, holding power button for 30s)

- Run the HP Basic system diagnostics tests on the SSD (passed) and memory (passed)

- Disabled secure boot (and reenabled, cleared keys, reloaded keys, etc.)

- Enabled legacy support (and disabled)

- Reset Bios to original settings (F9) then repeated above steps in various orders

- Reinstalled factory image twice more

At this point I was wondering if the drive wasn't formatting from the recovery disk and multiple boot files were causing problems so I booted into Parted Magic with UBCD and reformatted entire hard drive (write 0s to entire drive) and again reinstalled factory image. Still nothing so I repeated all of the steps above in random orders to try and get it going.

If I start into the Boot options, I can see the SSD, but it still won't boot. Does anyone have anymore ideas for me to try? The fact that it passes all tests and runs the Linux environment of Parted Magic seems to indicate that everything is working fine, but for whatever reason the Boot file is not loading.

Did I waste the money on the HP Recovery Disks and should have just bought my own Windows OEM license? 

I am going insane trying to figure this out. I am relatively experienced with PC's, but this is my first time work with the UEFI Windows 8 architecture so maybe there is something obvious I am missing? 

Thank you for any help.

[TechLobster123]

So I saw in another thread that partitions can sometimes be an issue. Last night I reran parted magic from UBCD and deleted all the partitions, formatted the drive and made the entire drive a new partition (NTFS), reinstalled from recovery disks again and after restart am still getting "No bootable device / boot device not found".

Any help would be immensely appreciated.

[FlashRam1714]

Hello @TechLobster123,

Thank you for posting on the HP Forums!

I recognize that you have tried several steps in an attempt to get your HP Envy dv7-7333cl back up and running. I want to help you get the computer running again.

What size is the SSD you are trying to use?

There is a document that goes pretty far into depth when performing a recovery:

HP PCs - Performing an HP system recovery (Windows 😎

Like before, make sure secure boot is disabled and legacy boot is enabled.

Purchasing an OEM license wouldn't make much of a difference in this case as the product key is embedded in the BIOS. 

Be sure to post back with the information!

[TechLobster123]

Hi flashram, its a 240 GB san disk ssd.

[FlashRam1714]

Hello @TechLobster123,

I have taken a look at the maintenance and service guide for your model of notebook and it says it supports a "180-GB or 160-GB SSD".

HP ENVY dv7 Notebook PC Maintenance and Service Guide

(Drive information on page 6)

Try creating a partition that is once of those sizes and see if you have different results.

I look forward to the results!

[TechLobster123]

I hope that is the case. I'll try the partitioning next, Problem is that I think the recovery media makes its own partitions, so I tihnk it would delete and remake anyways?

I was beginning to think that maybe it was just a bad SSD with bad sectors or something, so I went out and bought a new 1 TB HDD with the hopes that it would work since I am replacing the old 1TB. Got home, popped out SSD and in HDD. Put in Disk 1 of the recovery media (secure boot off and legacy support on as recommended) and it started the factory image process. After formatting the HDD, I get a new error as soon as it starts to read from the disk (2% into process):

Reducer: "Copy File Fails, From:  E:\PRELOAD\BASE2.WIM To:  C:\RM\Image\BASE2.WIM - Press OK to retry."

No change on waiting or clicking ok, took out disk and cleaned it and put back in to retry and same error. 

I am now trying to copy the DVDs hoping that I can get it to go... Is there any hope or is disk 1 no good?

[TechLobster123]

Well that was a bust, I didn't realize they were DL DVD's and I don't have any here. Back to trying to get HP disk to work.

[TechLobster123]

Update for those of you who are reading my story.

Reran memory and HDD testing in Bios and both passed.

My HP recovery disks appear bad (not the original issue but now a compounding problem), I'm now remaking a Window 8.1 .iso from Microsoft with the hopes that I can at least see a working Windows screen. 

[FlashRam1714]

Hello @TechLobster123,

Here is a document Microsoft put together for creating installation media:

Microsoft - Create installation media for Windows 8.1

I'm sure if the tests have passed, installing the .iso file shouldn't be an issue; as long as it's a good image. 

If you suspect the image on the recovery discs are bad that were sent by HP, I recommend calling into HP Support.

Contact HP Worldwide

Let me know how the Windows 8 .iso installation goes!

[TechLobster123]

Windows disk couldn't see any hard drive to install to. So I again booted into Parted Magic, where GParted indicated the GPT table had been corrupted, I assume because the BOOT files were only partially written due to bad HP disks (this is on the 1Tb HDD). So I wiped all the old partitions in PM and am made the entire drive one NTFS partition.

Now neither Windows disk or HP recovery disk can see the HDD when loading. Ran HDD test in Bios and still passes. 

I am running out of ideas here. This shouldn't be this difficult.