[SOLVED] HP Pavilion G6 won't boot ?

[peter762033]

Hi,

I have an old HP Pavilion G6-2240sa laptop which I'm trying to get working. It hasn't been used in a few years but worked fine the last time it was used.

When I turn it on I get the HP logo with the message 'preparing automatic repair' below. It then freezes and doesn't go any further, I've left it for a few hours and nothing changes.

I've tried to do a system recovery via the bios but I get the hp logo with the message 'please wait' and again it freezes and goes no further. I've ran tests on the memory and hdd and those passed. I also re seated the ram and hard drive. I then tried to do a fresh install of windows 10 via a bootable usb but again that freezes and gets stuck at the hp logo.

Any ideas on what this could be? Could it be something to do with the bios or maybe a bad cmos battery?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Pete

 

[Lutfij]

https://business.currys.co.uk/catal...p-pavilion-g6-2240sa-15-6-laptop-red/N016350W
Your laptop comes with an HDD, I'm certain that the HDD's failing and is what's preventing you from moving forward in your OS install due to it's age. Try and source a small capacity 2.5" SSD and replace the HDD, then install the OS onto it. If that goes well, you can then pick up a secondary drive caddy and replace the ODD in the laptop with said caddy to house the 2.5" HDD in.

Here are examples of the secondary drive caddy;

View: https://youtu.be/XQR6aytGwns

View: https://youtu.be/EMW731tYceo

 

[peter762033]

Hi Lutfij, thanks for your reply. I've installed a freshly formatted 1tb ssd in the laptop and again tried to install windows but i'm still having problems. Once i select the bootable usb I get this screen,

This screen hangs for around 10 minutes and I then get this message,

Once I press any key it goes back to the first screen. Do you know what this means or what could be causing it?

Thanks,
Pete

 

[stonecarver]

I would lean toward the cmos battery. You can simi bypass a bad motherboard battery if before you try to install Windows you go into BIOS and make sure the date and time are correct and it should stay correct until you unplug from the wall.

Than try to install Windows. Let us know if your making progress.

 

[peter762033]

Hi Stonecarver, thanks for your reply. I did notice whilst working on the laptop that the date and time changes after unplugging. I tried setting it correctly but I still get the same problems. I've ordered a replacement cmos battery so hopefully that will fix the problem! I'll update once I've installed the new battery.

Thanks,
Pete

 

[peter762033]

Hi Stonecarver, I replaced the cmos battery and I've still got the same issues. I'm guessing it could be a bad bios so I'm trying to update to the latest version which is proving to be difficult.

I've downloaded the latest bios available which comes as a .exe file. According to hp I should be able to create a bootable usb to update the bios but when i open the .exe I don't get that option. Instead it opens a program called insydeflash which doesn't have an option to create a bootable usb.

Is there a way to extract the correct files from the .exe and create a bootable usb that way?

Thanks,
Pete

 

[stonecarver]

If the battery didn't help with the issue than the next step is to follow Lutfij suggestion to think about the hard drive.

When I fix these things I start with the least damaging than work up from there. I would at this point order a SSD from amazon at least a 512 GB get a ISO copy of Windows from Microsoft and do a clean install on the new SSD.

I would only than later do a BIOS update if all else failed but the PC is working just not the OS.

 

[peter762033]

Hi Stonecarver,

I've tried a new ssd hard drive with a windows installation on bootable usb but I still get the same freezing issue.

I also made a bootable USB with hirens boot cd and I can't get that to open either. I've tried booting to the USB with no hard drive installed and still the same problem. That's what made me think it could be a bios issue, could that be possible?

Thanks again for your help.
Pete

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Your posted screenshot tells you exactly what the problem is. It cannot find the efi\boot\bootx64.efi file on the boot partition. You will either have to use an install/restore image downloaded from HP (for that specific model) or a retail copy of Windows to perform the installation.

 

[peter762033]

I ended up finding a cheap used motherboard and swapped it over.
Everything is working fine now and all the other hardware is working properly. Glad to have this resolved!

Thanks for everyone's help,
Pete