HP Elitebook 840 G1

[lmorrison101]

I'm almost done with this thing. 

I bought this HP EliteBook 840 G1 off a friend who takes really good care of his stuff. The laptop is dust free and looks like it just came out of the box. It originally came with Windows 7, but I decided to upgrade to Windows 10 because it was free and promised many new features. Everything was ok with the occasional bug (audio not working, fingerprint reader not reading), but a simple restart usually covered the problem. Yesterday, I was putting a complicated Movie Maker project together and typing up 2 seperate essays for school when the wifi indicator on the Elitebook turned orange and wouldn't connect to wifi. I saved my work and restarted my machine to find "Error 3F0 - Please install an operating system on your hard disk". So I had to wipe the drive, install Linux Ubuntu, and here I am with several weeks of lost work and an unpredictable 2 year old laptop. Extensive BIOS tests show the hard drive and memory have "PASSED" everything.

I'm going to assume this is Windows 10 because the laptop was fully functional on Windows 7 and works great on Linux Ubuntu 16.06. The reason I'm posting this is because I don't have Windows 7 to install on the device. I have the original product key on the bottom of the computer, but on the official Windows 7 software download page, it tells me to contact HP for assistance.

Any help posting a Windows 7 Professional x64 .iso link would be amazing. Again, I have my own product key and I can use Rufus to make it bootable from my USB drive. Thanks.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Microsoft pulled all links to legal downloads of the Vista and W7 ISO files unless you have a valid full retail product key to enter in that website.

The product key on the bottom of your notebook is an OEM key, not a retail one.

If you live in the USA/Canada, call HP at this number to order a set of W7 Pro x64 recovery disks.

Have the serial number of the PC handy to give to the customer services rep.

1-800-334-5144

A set should cost around $10 delivered via first class mail.

[lmorrison101]

My laptop doesn't have a CD drive, but i'll try the phone number and see what happens.

[lmorrison101]

Thanks for the phone #! I called up and i'm getting the Elitebook Recovery media on disks. As for the CD lacking issue, i'll probably just burn the files onto USB and be done with it.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

That or use an external USB DVD drive and plug it into one of the USB 2 ports.

[THEFOURWISEBOYS]

I downloaded Windows 7 to a usb but I cannot get my laptop to install it.