My in-laws have an HP Pavillion 500-267c desktop running Win 7. They are elderly and use it for games, small files, etc. Well, they went to play a game and the icon had disappeared. Not sure what happened next but now the unit won't boot up. It was bought at Costco about 4 yrs ago and no one remembers getting any docs or disks with it. So, no recovery disk….
So I'm kinda in a catch-22 here…I made a Win 7 recovery disk on my laptop that runs Win 7 Premium, but the desktop says it's not compatible so it won;t run it. I can't get to the Recovery options screen….all I get is a black screen that says there's an error with the boot disk.
I was able to run some self diagnostics on it and the RAM and HDD are ok. My laptop is 64 bit and I'm going to guess that maybe the desktop is 32 bit which may be causing the incompatibility with the recovery disk? I'm able to get into the BIOS and flop the boot sequence from HDD to DVD but doesn't make a difference. I guess what I may need is advice on how to get a Win 7 64 bit laptop to make a bootable disk for the 32 bit desktop! OR if there's some 3rd party files that can get the desktop to boot….
When I got to the link you gave me, I realized I'd already been there. Putting the 25 digit Win7 code into the verification window, it came back with an error message " Error: The product key you have entered appears to be for software which was pre-installed by the device manufacturer. Please contact the device manufacturer for software recovery options."
I went to the HP site and they may or may not have a recovery disk available since the PC is over 4 years old. I was hoping there was a work-around for this? Can I use another Win 7 product key that would render a disk that the PC would read from another Win 7 PC? Is it possible that the Costco PC has Win 7 Home Edition on it and I need to find that ISO?
If you can boot the Windows 7 Recovery Disc and get to a Command Prompt, have you run chkdsk against the boot drive yet? If not do it as it may fix your problem.
Note that your Windows drive may not be C: so you need to figure out what it's drive letter is then run
chkdsk x: /f /r (x: is the driver letter for your Windows boot drive)
That may fix one or more file structure problems and you may then be able to boot.
I think maybe I wasn't clear in my reply. The MS site in the link works, it's when I enter the 25 digit Windows product key that I get the error message. That message, as referenced above, redirects you to the HP site for the correct boot disk. It looks like HP has linked their product ID, Serial#, and model# to the Windows product code to that specific computer. They have partitioned the HDD into 4 sections and one of them is indeed the HP Recovery info, but I can't get it to boot to the Windows screen to get to a cmd prompt.
When I get to the HP site, entering the necessary product codes required yields another error message indicating that the Recovery Disk info for this specific model is not available online and you must purchase an HP recovery USB from them.
I've tried several ways to download Win7 ISO but none of them will run on the PC. I'm able to get to the BIOS to change the boot options from HDD to disk or USB but neither recognize the files downloaded. I even have an original Win7 Home Premium disk that I tried. It won't even let me reinstall Win7 as the product ID doesn't match the PC.! Manually installing the Costco product numbers gives me error messages.
It appears to me that this is a nifty security setup by HP and MS to prevent anyone from using the supplied O/S disks on other PC's. It forces you to purchase a custom disk/USB stick from HP to recover your unit unless you made on on that PC when you purchased it. Am I making any sense here?
Update:
I d/l the iso from the link onto a USB drive. Started the PC and set the boot config for USB. Restarted the PC with the USB and got the error message that there was no boot drive or that it had failed.
When you get into BIOS setup, does the HDD show there? If not, try resetting the CMOS by powering down, removing the power cord, removing the CMOS battery, then press and hold the power button for 20 seconds or so to allow all capacitors to drain.
Replace CMOS battery, reconnect power cord and power up. You should get a message about system configuration corrupt, press F1 to continue, press F2 to enter setup. Press F2.
In Setup, press the key (often F5 or F9) or select the entry to Load Defaults. Does the HDD show up now. If yes then Save and Exit. If not you can also Save and Exit but you will need to replace the hard drive (HDD) then install Windows 7, apply all updates, install software.
I think you would be better off ordering the Recovery Disc from HP since it will have all the correct drivers and also the games your in-laws are used to playing, unless they play games other than what HP provided. You can get it from here: Order Recovery Media-CD/DVD/USB (1)
Well, I've done everything you suggested and it's still not working so I went ahead and ordered the Recovery Disk from HP. Should be here in a few days and we'll see if that resolves this mess!
Thanks for Phill's and your help…..it was greatly appreciated as always
