Trouble reloading Windows 7 onto old Laptop

[SuicideSquirrel]

The HDD in my HP G72 B66US has crashed. It is no longer funtional. I am trying to replace the HDD with a Crucial BX500   240GB. I am attempting to load Windows 7 onto the SSD by using the four HP Recovery disks created when I first bought the G72 B66US machine. I ran the HP Recovery for a factory reset and all four of the recovery disks have been proccessed. When the laptop attempts to reboot it gets stuck on the HP start up screen. A blue HP logo in the center of the screen and at the bottom of the screen is the message "Press ESC for start up options". I have left the laptop at that point for over an hour but it remains frozen. When I shout off the machine and turn it on again there is a message "Boot error - Please insert bootable media".

I have tried downloading a Windows 7 ISO from:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows 7

but when I enter my product key I receive the error message "Then product key you have entered appears to be for software pre-installed by the device manufacturer.  Please contact the devicde manufacturer for software recovery options.

Any help appreciated. Thank you.

[WAWood]

@SuicideSquirrel 

If the new SSD is significantly smaller capacity than your original HDD, then the HP Recovery function will not work because it starts by reformatting the drive and attempting to recreate the original partition scheme -- which will fail if the new drive is a lot smaller.

As to the product key, what you downloaded was probably a Retail version of Windows, and what you have on your PC was an HP OEM version -- and the two use very different product keys.

You might  be able to find HP Recovery Media for your model PC at this website  http://www.computersurgeons.com/

Good Luck

[SuicideSquirrel]

The original HDD was 500 GB, the SSD is 240 GB.

I removed the SSD from the laptop and it does appear that the files from recovery DVDs were copied onto the SSD. I'm sure the space required to install Windows 7 Home Premium is far less than 240GB. Why is the max capacity difference relevant?

I also tried copying the recovery files directly to a reformatted  SSD. The machine still refuses to boot even when I hit F11 recovery options.  I changed the  boot order back to Internal HDD

. 

Thanks.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @SuicideSquirrel 

Normally the replacement drive has to be the same size as the original because the 4 recovery disks are a factory image of the OS, drivers, programs, etc that originally came with your PC, and the image was made for a 500 GB hard drive.

So, you are trying to put an image developed for a 500 GB HDD onto one half the size.

You can download a legitimate W7 64 bit Home Premium ISO file from the link below, toward the bottom of the page.

https://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/windows-7-home-premium-free-download-iso-32-bit-64...

[SuicideSquirrel]

Hi, @Paul_Tikkanen. Thank you for the reply.

I purchased a Crucial MX500 1TB for my HP Pavillion 17t at the same time as the BX500 I mentioned above. I was able to clone my hard drive to the SSD without issue. The HP Pavillion 17t is running just dandy.

That meant that the replaced 1TB HDD that was in the HP Pavillion 17t was now available for the old G72 B66US. The recent HDD that crashed in the G72 B66US was fresh out of the box 1TB and it recovered without issue three years ago using the same recovery disks I am trying to use now. I figured I had it made. I thought that I could use the 1 TB HDD to recover Windows 7 using the recovery disks. No luck, there is now a system error when trying to load disk #1 of the recovery disks. Funny how I wasn't receiving that error with the SSD. I don't see how anything could have happened to the disk. It is a DVD-R.  The G72 B66US is passing memory and hard disk tests. I don't understand it. The machine is obviously cursed.

Anyway, I'd like to follow your suggestion of downloading a legitimate Windows 7 ISO from that website onto a bootable USB drive. By using the ISO file I can hopefully avoid most of the tedium of applying updates (SP1 etc).

Question #1: Won't I run into difficulty when I need to enter a valid Windows 7 Home Premium key?

Question #2: If a key isn't needed, is it possible to be greedy and load Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 instead?

Thank you.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

To answer your questions...

1. Worst case scenario, is that W7 doesn't automatically activate since the ISO file is a retail file and the key is OEM.

What will happen is you will have to use the automated phone activation assistant to activate windows, and you will be guided through the steps to do that, should windows not be automatically activated.

2. If you can install W7, you may still be able to get the free upgrade to W10.  See this link for more info below.

I know it works because I was able to upgrade from W8.1 Pro to W10 Pro on a Dell OptiPlex 7020 desktop PC a few weeks ago.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-you-can-still-get-a-free-windows-10-upgrade/

[SuicideSquirrel]

Thank you so much Paul.

The Windows 7 Home Premium ISO, the automated phone activation and the free upgrade to W10 still work. I now have Windows 10 Home 1903 loaded on the HP G72 B66US. Everything appears to be working well.

Cheers!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.