Help Installing Windows 7 on SSD on HP ENVY 17-3070nr Notebook PC

[Bycote]

I am trying to install a SSD with Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit into my HP laptop. I have a Samsung 64 GB SSD and a retail Windows 7 disc.

I powered off the laptop, unplugged it, then removed the existing hard drive. I plugged in my new SSD in the exact same plug the old one was previously plugged into. I inserted my Windows 7 disc and booted to it. I successfully installed Windows 7 onto the SSD and when it was finished Windows booted to my desktop. I manually shut down the computer and turned it back on and now Windows will not boot. The hard drive does not appear to be bootable: it just goes to a black screen with a white cursor blinking in the top-left corner.

I repeated all of the previous steps, reformatting the SSD using the Windows 7 disc before reinstalling, and I got the exact same results.

I removed the SSD and reinstalled the original HDD and now it also will not boot, but goes to the same black screen!

My hard drives both refuse to boot. What do I need to do to use my SSD as my bootable Windows installation and my spare HDD as my storage partition?

Thank you.

 

[Rabmac]

I am a bit confused, do you have a desktop or a laptop?

 

[bailojustin]

Insert your windows 7 CD, if trying to install onto the SSD please follow these EXACT steps. this WILL ERASE EVERYTHING ON THE SSD.

1. Change boot to boot from disk
2. Click install(will not be installing) Bottom left click repair
3. Click Command prompt
4. Type Diskpart
5.type List Disk
6.Type Select Disk * (* is whichever number 0-10 your SSD is listed as. Usually it will be 1 or 0
7. type clean
8. Type Create Partition Primary
9. Type Select part 1
10.type Active
11. Type format fs=ntfs quick
12. type Assign letter C
13. type exit
14. Now your done, everything is golden, just reinstall your windows 7 right after using the disk you have and then after your OS is installed, change boot priority to your SSD

 

[bailojustin]

I am a bit confused, do you have a desktop or a laptop?

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit into my HP laptop
Installing Windows 7 on SSD on HP ENVY 17-3070nr Notebook PC

 

[Rabmac]

lol you make a good point.

My confusion was due to there being 2 HDD, as I have never seen a laptop with 2 HDDs before.

 

[bailojustin]

lol you make a good point.

My confusion was due to there being 2 HDD, as I have never seen a laptop with 2 HDDs before.

Some come with 2(the good 1s), 1 dedicated for the boot drive/sys files.

 

[Rabmac]

Cheers for the info. For the record I did notice he said Notebook in the title and you now know the reason for my confusion.

 

[Bycote]

bailojustin, thank you for your very thorough response!

I actually removed the SSD from my laptop and installed it in my desktop to continue working on it.

I followed your instructions to the letter right up to the very end where I set the drive letter to C. Unfortunately, I can't do this with the hard drive installed in my desktop.

This reminds me that before I installed Windows 7 on it, I plugged it into my laptop and booted to the original HDD just to make sure Windows would recognize the SSD in that laptop: it did. Am I screwing something up by having the wrong drive letter assigned?

Update - after doing the aforementioned (minus changing the drive letter, I didn't see the "repair" option in my Windows 7 installation process), I am having the same problem as before. After Windows 7 installs, it boots to my desktop, then automatically reboots and goes to the black screen with flashing white cursor.

I read on another website that Windows may be displayed on another display. That seems ridiculous, but I connected a second monitor to one of my HDMI ports and indeed nothing at all appears on that screen.

I am at a total loss for what to do. Will ordering the HP recovery and repair disc help at all with this problem?

 

[Bycote]

Wow, I am so embarrassed! I just ejected the Windows 7 disc and it's working perfectly. I'm sorry I wasted your time!

It is interesting that even though I was booting to the HDD, the computer couldn't boot with the disc in the DVD drive.

 

[bailojustin]

Because the boot priorities were set in the bios to CDROM first before HDD. you can just change that in the bios .

 

[Bycote]

Because the boot priorities were set in the bios to CDROM first before HDD. you can just change that in the bios .

Just to be clear to anyone reading this thread in the future having a similar problem: My boot priority remained set to hard drive first, cd/dvd rom second throughout this process. The only way I ever booted to the Windows disc was by pressing Esc to get the boot selection menu, and arrowing down to that option.