System Recovery Failure

Culver

Estimable
Feb 11, 2015
2
0
4,510
Product Name: Pavilion g6 -2249WM
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (64-bit)

Last week I purchased a set of recovery discs directly from HP.com. Before this my laptop was running perfectly fine, no issues at all. I purchased the discs in hope of restoring my laptop to its factory settings. After receiving the first set of discs I inserted the first disc and powered my laptop down and then powered it back up. I then proceeded to follow the instructions presented in the interface. I noticed when I got to the 4th disc, the "Application and Driver Recovery DVD", that the image was not taking at all. After such I received the following message in Recovery Manager: "In most cases, recovering the hard drive will fix your problems. If your problems continue, you may need to contact HP Support. Find HP Support contact information in your PC documentation".

From there I clicked on the "finish" tab that resulted in the laptop powering down but not rebooting. So I powered it back up manually where I received the infamous "Boot Device Not Found / Please install an operating system on your hard disk / Hard Disk (3F0) / F2 System Diagnostics" message. I was immediately alarmed. I proceeded to repeat the system recovery instructions once again. These were the instructions provided by HP along with the recovery discs.

Once again I received the same messages, the same results. So I immediately contacted HP support. The first agent I spoke to acted as if he had never heard of the "Boot Device Not Found" problem, which I now know is very common with HP notebooks. He diagnosed the problem as faulty recovery discs, thus he had a new set expedited to my home. I received them a few days later, the exact same set of discs and instructions. Of course I was feeling weary about things at this point. And as I expected I received the exact same results as I did with the prior set of discs.

So once again I contacted HP support where they looked into other problems, such as the health of my HDD. But the HDD passed both the quick check and the extensive check. Like I stated earlier, before I started the recovery process with the HP discs I had no problems with my laptop at all, including my HDD. So the agent had me go through the BIOS solution that I have seen others use on here, where legacy mode is enabled. This solution to failed.

I've also tried resetting the BIOS to it's default settings. I've also carefully removed my HDD and reseated it nice and snug. After doing so I ran the diagnostic tool, and once again the HDD passed with flying colors. HP support finally suggested, as I was already expecting, for me to have the laptop sent off to them to have it repaired. This is not an option. It was a perfectly running machine before I ran the recovery discs and it should be the same now.

But one thing I did notice from the get go, after receiving the first set of discs, and researching what the interface of the recovery manager should look like (http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03489643), was the fact that the interface established by the windows 8 recovery discs that I received, look nothing like that found on the HP support site. It also never gave me the option, like it states in the instructions that were provided with the discs, to select either a "Factory Reset" or a "File Backup Program". The system recovery instructions are dated as Second Edition: March 2014 but the 3 operating discs are dated 2012 with the Driver disc being dated 2014.

Like I stated before, after running all 3 operating discs through, without interuption, the Driver disc does nothing when asked if I have a supplemental disc. With that all being said, has anyone ever been provided the wrong set of recovery discs directly from HP? Or do you know of another solution that might solve my dilema? Any help or suggestions would be sincerely appreciated.

I'm just wondering if I might have received a set of discs intended for let's say a desktop system running Windows 8 instead of the ones needed for a laptop.

The following is the name and part # of the discs that I received: "System Recovery DVD Windows 8 Recovery Media for Windows 8 Products". 1st disc: 708664-001, 2nd disc: 708665-001, 3rd disc: 708666-001, 4th disc (Application and Driver): 712189-B26.

 
Solution
No, you wouldn't get the "boot device not found" message if it were the incorrect drivers. It would try to boot into windows and then go into system recovery.

Sometimes you will have a bad drive even if you pass a hard drive test.

At this point if it were me, I would install from a regular Windows 8 CD. You can download an ISO here (for now at least):

https://userscloud.com/rqk8hut8629o

You will obviously need another computer with internet access to do this. Once it has downloaded, you can burn the .iso using the free version of poweriso which you can obtain here:

http://www.poweriso.com/download.htm

Just be careful when installing to uncheck any of the optional programs, promotional offers etc.... After you have a basic...

Clayto1332

Estimable
Feb 10, 2015
64
0
4,610
No, you wouldn't get the "boot device not found" message if it were the incorrect drivers. It would try to boot into windows and then go into system recovery.

Sometimes you will have a bad drive even if you pass a hard drive test.

At this point if it were me, I would install from a regular Windows 8 CD. You can download an ISO here (for now at least):

https://userscloud.com/rqk8hut8629o

You will obviously need another computer with internet access to do this. Once it has downloaded, you can burn the .iso using the free version of poweriso which you can obtain here:

http://www.poweriso.com/download.htm

Just be careful when installing to uncheck any of the optional programs, promotional offers etc.... After you have a basic driverless Windows 8 installation, you should be able to use the driver disk they sent to you. However if it doesn't work you can get any drivers for any laptop models on HP's website. You would more than likely have to download these from another computer because of the lack of internet access and move them over with something like a flash drive.

If the plain Windows 8 installation fails you will just have to try a new hard drive. Hope this helps.
 
Solution

Culver

Estimable
Feb 11, 2015
2
0
4,510


Thank you so much for the advice. I followed your recommendations and as I was expecting the software loaded with no problem. My HP laptop is up and running again. Now I'm just curious to see if the 3rd set of recovery disks sent to me from HP will actually be the correct ones, this after almost 2 weeks since I initially ordered the first set of recovery disks. During my 2nd conversation with a HP technical representative over this ordeal I told the Indian rep (Fred as I recall) that I believed the disks were not the ones needed for my system, this after them having all my PCs info, including serial number. He gave me a smartass response. Irked me to say the least, especially considering I have a degree in IT.

Finally, after going into great deal with a female technical rep from HP last night, she finally realized I was correct about the disks from the get go. She talked to her supervisor and told me that they were going to send me another set of disks because they believed the disks "had been copied wrong", which obviously they were! Took them almost 2 weeks to realize I was correct, not to mention the hours and hours I have spent on trying to solve this problem.

Well thanks again. I owe you a cold one!

Regards,

Culver