Notebook Operating System and Recovery

Hi.

I have HP ENVY 6-1030ec with a standard 500GB HDD and extra 32GB SSD as a cache. I wanted to clean install Win 7 on it but was unable to do so.

First I did not see any drives at the point where I should choose on which drive to install Windows. I then completely formatted the 500GB HDD, and stupidly enough even the recovery partitions. It did not help.

I did some google search and found http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/Clean-install-Win-7-hybrid-hdd/t.... I downloaded the drivers, but it did not work. Firstly, it depends on in which USB slot is my bootable USB. From one slot, I cannot see the other USB with the drivers on it. If I switch the USBs and start installation, it skips the part where I can choose the disk to install Win 7 to and goes directly to the part where I should load drivers. In this case, I’m able to see the other USB stick, find some drivers on it but after trying to install those, it says something about that there are no new devices.

Next I tried installing Win 7 on the harddisk on another computer. It worked fine and I used Sysprep -oobe and hoped it will solve the problem. I did so and it did not solve the problem. After some issues I got into the state that Win 7 installs, restarts and before the part where I choose username etc. I get “Windows Setup could not configure Windows on this computer’s hardware” error. I google a solution https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2466753 but it did not work. First I tried the drivers (again), then I turned off RAID. Now, during the Win 7 installation, I can see not only the HDD, but also the SSD. However, I still get the same error.

I googled a bit more and found http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/61328-63-widows-setup-configure-windows-computer-hardware. I tried the part with Msoobe, but when I run it, it says the program is incompatible with the current version of Windows and that I should check for x64 or x86 system.

I also tried to install Win on another HDD. This time I got further, even got to choose username in Windows, set timezone, put in product key but then I get error saying “Logon Process initialization failure. Interactive Logon Process initialization has failed. Please consult the event log for more details”. I tried googling that, but only found some advices for when this happens after Windows has been running normally.

I have done Win 7 installation many times but this never occurred to me. I’m really lost right now and would appreciate any help.

Best

FF