AlistairSCS :
We have several old HP Elitebooks that were donated to our charity. The Hard Drives have been completely wiped and when you turn on all you get is non-system disk error. I created a Bootable USB flash drive with Chromium OS on it that I tested with another machine, and it works on that machine. However, even after I have moved all the USB options up in the boot order to the top of the queue, the laptop fails to find the flash drive on power up and still gives the non-system disk error. Is there anything I can do?
AlistairSCS,
I expect that the wiped drives are only unallocated space- hard drive limbo.
I'd suggest:
1. Temporarily installing the wiped drives in a working system. If they only sit on a drive tray that acceptable.
2. Download and install EaseUS Partition Master, the Free version
3. The wiped drives should show Unallocated Volume"
4. Select that volume and right click create or make partition:5. That action will appear on the left as "Pending Operations"
5. Click on" Apply and it will show a volume and the size
6. Click on the volume to select it- It wil be highlighted
7. Right click: "Format Partition" and select NTSF format
8. Apply
9. Right click on the formatted volume and right click: Set as primary"
10. Apply
11.The drive can now be used to install Windows
This will be a bit tedious on a number of drives, but set up an assembly line and even if the drives are mixed they will be compatible to each system. If you are restoring Windows to the system, it will need to be installed individually to the specific system. You can download an ISO of the the system listed on the COA, install from a USB, and activate form the COA product key.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
Old Scottish saying:
"There are more old drunks than old laptops."
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