Laptop Repair and Upgrade

ignatzatsonic said:

see comments

The " it" per say, is my GD has a decent LT, ( with a minor repair, a battery and an SSD upgrade ), for a little girl who no doubt would be delighted with it, who needs one and her parents can't afford one.

My GD asking me to repair it mentioned the afore said OS/LT issues as best as her memory can recollect.

My concern/problems was/is and you confirm, if there is a clash or something restrictive within the original HP/setup OS installation and I install a mirror image to a new SSD I would be transferring the issue/s, I am trying to prevent this reoccurrence and am wondering the best way forward.

I am sure, like my GD, this little girl would not like her LT to crash.

Which partition would the original HP MBR/recovery/bloatware be on?

I'm still not getting it.

You said in post 9:

"While GD appears to think so, I am not convinced it is the Win 10 ISO installation".......

"It" meaning the USB port?

Or the battery?

Or the lack of an SSD?

Or "bloatware"?

Or something else?

If the laptop is "fully activated, working fine and stable at the moment and has a product key", then I would do this in this order:

1: Come to a conclusion about the USB port. Fix it, ignore it, or otherwise decide it is not a deal-breaker.

2: Buy a new SSD and possibly a battery if you need one.

3: Use Macrium to image all partitions on the current drive.

4: Install the SSD.

5: Restore the image to the SSD.

I have no idea if the HP bloatware still currently exists on Windows 10, but even if it does I would NOT be concerned with it.

Deal with bloatware after the restore.......either by ignoring it or uninstalling it piece by piece.

Or Plan B:

Do a clean install onto the new SSD and then reinstall and reconfigure the software of your choice.


But there may well be things I have yet to understand about the laptop or what you don't like about it.

I'm a bit late to the party, but I wonder what the HP model number is. (Pavilion 15P is a series, not a model.)

It'd be interesting to check whether HP supported Win10 on that machine. (Should have, if it's 5-6 years old.)

If drivers are available, what I would do is a clean install on the new SSD. That assumes that the laptop has a digital license of Win10, so that the install would activate online. The 1TB HD, I'd wipe.

But that's just me.

As for the loose USB port, I hope that it's fixable. Epoxy? A little soldering?

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ignatzatsonic said:

I'm still not getting it.
You said in post 9:
"While GD appears to think so, I am not convinced it is the Win 10 ISO installation".......

OK,

I will put it another way,

While GD thinks so, I am not convinced her Win 10 ISO install was the culprit that forced her, ( because LT would not boot to Win 10 desktop ), to revert to the original HP factory/recovery settings/OS which apparently is Windows 7 home.

Depending on the type of OS installation/license/educational version of Windows 7 installed by HP, her conclusion, right or wrong, there must be a conflict between the original HP installed OS which remains in a protected recovery partition on the " C " drive and her installing an ISO of Win 10.

The laptop crashes happened twice after which she never used the LT again and was moth balled. Her friend's little girl requires a L/T, GD wants me to resurrect it.

I can repair the USB port, will repair or replace the existing battery, ( I am not surprised it won't hold a charge, LT was off for 3-4 years and battery probably screwed).

I will take the existing HDD drive, install it into the optical drive so It can be a data backup and install an SSD which will have the OS on it.

My concern and you and I both agree it will happen, if there is a conflict, when I create a mirror image and transfer mirror image to new SSD I will also be transferring the possible conflict, all the original protected HP OS partitions, bloat ware, factory settings, all of it, I am trying to avoid this but I don't see that I can.

A better solution I think would be a fresh install of WIN 10 home ISO from scratch, the issue there is such an install will still not delete the above---am I correct in thinking this?

As for the rest of your post, I am in agreement, I may have to do it this way.

Your Plan B, do you mean install directly a Win 10 iso on to SSD and then create the OS on to SSD?

- - - Updated - - -

bobkn said:

I'm a bit late to the party, but I wonder what the HP model number is. (Pavilion 15P is a series, not a model.)

It'd be interesting to check whether HP supported Win10 on that machine. (Should have, if it's 5-6 years old.)If drivers are available, what I would do is a clean install on the new SSD. That assumes that the laptop has a digital license of Win10, so that the install would activate online. The 1TB HD, I'd wipe.
But that's just me.
As for the loose USB port, I hope that it's fixable. Epoxy? A little soldering?

Hi,

According to Belarc it is a HP Pavilion 15p 249SA Note Book and does support Win 10.

All the drivers, that includes HPs most recent ones, I have on a flash drive, so no problems there.

I have already flashed the BIOS, all went smoothly.

Soldering since a boy, there shouldn't be an issue.

- - - Updated - - -

In short what I am trying to achieve is install existing Win 10 OS or fresh install on a SSD without any HP crapware/ factory settings, anything HP where possible.

see comments:

Jaylob4 said:

While GD thinks so, I am not convinced her Win 10 ISO install was the culprit that forced her, ( because LT would not boot to Win 10 desktop ), to revert to the original HP factory/recovery settings/OS which apparently is Windows 7 home.

In post 9, you said “The Win 10 OS is fully activated, working fine and stable at the moment and has a product key.”

So “would not boot” appears to NOT be a problem currently.

If you STILL have intermittent problems, that’s another story, but you aren’t saying that as far as I can tell.

Depending on the type of OS installation/license/educational version of Windows 7 installed by HP, her conclusion, right or wrong, there must be a conflict between the original HP installed OS which remains in a protected recovery partition on the " C " drive and her installing an ISO of Win 10.

I wouldn’t imagine that the contents of a recovery partition would be relevant to what’s going on NOW, particularly since you say everything is working fine now. You claim to be activated on Windows 10 and have a Product Key.

Why do you think there are any remnants of the HP installation anywhere on the laptop, including the recovery partition?

Using menus or HP instructions, could you right now roll back to the original HP Win 7 installation if you wanted to?


The laptop crashes happened twice after which she never used the LT again and was moth balled. Her friend's little girl requires a L/T, GD wants me to resurrect it.

In post 7, you say that several years ago “the laptop would not boot, another reset but then she stopped using it altogether”.

But now it is working fine.

What caused it to not boot then, but work fine now? The reset several years ago? Something you have done recently?

The last time she tried to use it, it would not boot so she did a reset and then put it down. After several years unused in mothballs, it now works fine.

I have to assume something is being left out of the story.


when I create a mirror image and transfer mirror image to new SSD I will also be transferring the possible conflict, all the original protected HP OS partitions, bloat ware, factory settings, all of it, I am trying to avoid this but I don't see that I can.

It’s working fine now. What is the evidence of any conflict? Non-booting problems from several years ago that are gone now?


A better solution I think would be a fresh install of WIN 10 home ISO from scratch, the issue there is such an install will still not delete the above---am I correct in thinking this?

What is “the above”? The “possible conflict” from several years ago that doesn’t appear to be an issue in 2021 after the last “reset”?

Obviously…..if you are worried for good reasons or bad reasons or no reason, then do a clean install. I’m just not following your reasoning.

Your Plan B, do you mean install directly a Win 10 iso on to SSD and then create the OS on to SSD?

I’m not following “install directly a Win 10 ISO on to SSD”. You would make the installation media via Microsoft’s own downloadable Media Creation Tool. See the tutorial on this site.

Given your apparent anxiety about the current installation, justified or not, why not do the clean install?

I have no idea if the laptop has other underlying hardware issues of course.

It's generous to give a gift to a friend ... but you're not doing much by giving a very old, very cheap laptop.
The HP Pavilion 15p is a very low-end unit. HP says the average life span is three years.
The same is true for a wide range of low-end laptops. They're just poorly built. (It's not the tech. It's the physical design.)

You've handled it gently enough to make it last. But it's already on borrowed time.
That loose USB connector is just the first fault to arise. Good luck fixing it.

If your granddaughter did a clean install of Windows 10, all previous partitions would be deleted and gone, including anything related to HP.

At that point, the possibility of reverting to original Win 7 installation via the HP recovery partition would have gone away.

I have no idea if she did a clean install. She may not either.

I gather that the last instance of this intermittent problem was several years ago, prior to the last "reset" and mothballs.

If you remain anxious, do a clean install.

ignatzatsonic said:

If your granddaughter did a clean install of Windows 10, all previous partitions would be deleted and gone, including anything related to HP.
At that point, the possibility of reverting to original Win 7 installation via the HP recovery partition would have gone away.

I would have thought so but apparently at the time this was not the case.

I gather that the last instance of this intermittent problem was several years ago, prior to the last "reset" and mothballs.

Yes.

If you remain anxious, do a clean install.

Yes, best way I think.