HDD will not boot after fresh Windows install and format of HDD.

[MPThoma5]

I have formatted the HDD and removed all previous partitions as my family member had forgotten the Bitlocker password and account information.

I have tried to install Win11 and Win10 but after the initial setup files have been transferred and the additional boot partitions created, it will not boot to the local HDD.

when booting from an external USB I’m able to browse the HDD successfully.

I have reset the BIOS but still to no avail. 

Any suggestions to recover my HP 14s-dq2514sa laptop?

Thanks in advanced. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

What I suggest you do is to make a bootable USB recovery drive with another PC running W7 64 bit or newer that will install W10, the drivers and the software that should have originally come with the PC.

Here is an info link for how to use the utility.  You will also 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

According to the recovery tool's website database, your PC's product number, 3Z7N4EA#ABU, is supported.

If that fails to work, you may have to replace the drive itself since it was encrypted.

[MPThoma5]

Thank you for your suggestion.

I have tried this and applied it to my laptop, but it is now displaying the error: Hard disk  (3F0) to say that it does not have an OS installed.

[MPThoma5]

I have run the Hard drive check via BIOS and it was successful.

I'm also able to view teh drive when booting from a USB pen drive.

I beleive this is realted to a setting in the BIOS, and I have reset the BIOS settings to default and tried a few random options before changing them back.

Any assitance will be greatly received.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

You should be able to install Windows if the BIOS is set to legacy mode with secure boot disabled, or in UEFI mode with Legacy mode disabled and secure boot enabled.

Have you watched any YouTube videos which show how to install Windows on an encrypted drive?

Reinstall windows on bitlocker encrypted drive - Bing video

The way I understand bitlocker and drive encryption is that once that happens, if you don't have the key to unlock the drive, it is useless to you and a new drive needs to be installed.

I would equate it to spiking a gun barrel. 

There is no way to unspike it.  You need to replace the barrel if you want to use the gun again.

[MPThoma5]

Enabling Legacy within the BIOS was my first thought when the HDD would not boot but it is not available.

I’ve been able to recover the HDD and it now has the HP recovery image installed.

The latest issue is that it is not booting to the HDD as it is not drinking the boot sector on the HDD.

it is set to boot to the HDD by default in BIOS.

All of the pc hardware diagnostics tests have been successful.

I’ve reset the BIOS to default but I’m unable to find the option required.

This is like no other laptop I have rebuilt previously. 

[MPThoma5]

I have disabled secure boot and can boot from a USB pen drive successfully, but I still cannot boot from the HP recovery image installed to the HDD.

Do I need to install a boot sector manually?

A similar issue to a previous post but there is no solution: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Boot-and-Lockup/OS-Boot-Manager-is-not-found/td-p/7212800

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Unfortunately, I don't know what you can do about that problem.

I still think you are going to have to install a new 500 GB M.2 NVMe SSD in order to get the notebook to work again.

[MPThoma5]

Would my issue be due to the HDD being displayed as GPT in opposed to MBR?

I’ve been unable to confer this. 

[tk_srq]

@MPThoma5,

The screenshot says your hdd is not on MBR, so it is on GPT partition scheme and therefore is on the UEFI mode. In this case, Windows boot manager resides on EFI partition. If the OS Boot manager error is triggered by the damaged EFI partition, you can fix it via command prompt in Windows Recovery Environment (RE). The efi partition is a hidden partition so you need to use diskpart to assign a letter to it, then you can run BCDBOOT command to fix the problem.

You just need more info to excute the Bcdboot command. Please run a Windows 10 installation usb drive created via MS media creation tool and open command prompt in Windows RE. Type the following command lines. Click enter after each command line:

diskpart

select disk 0

list partition

list volume

Please post a screen shot of the above then we can build command lines. Again, if the OS Boot Manager error is caused by the damaged or nonexistent efi partition, you can probably fix it in Windows RE.