Could REALLY use some help with Windows 8 please

D

DoggyDaddi

Gawd
Joined
Sep 10, 2002
Messages
783
Ok, just bought a laptop for cheap, brand new unopened HP Dv7-7230us.. also bought a nice little 120gb SSD to use as the new primary, and relegate the original 1tb to the secondary.

Anyways, I installed a blu-burner too, got it all slapped together.. and damn if my image I made when I bought and downloaded Windows 8 Pro fro Microsoft wont boot. Fine.. I was prepped for that.. I made a USB stick efi too. It DOES recognise, but the laptop has a BIOS windows key for basic WIndows 8, and won't let me enter in a new key for the software I'm trying to install. It just tells me it's the wrong key and stops.

So fine.. I REINSTALL the original drive, go thru ALL the bullshit of burning all 6 recovery disks... but can't do anything until my SSD is properly set up using the included software, which I can't use until my 2nd hd kit arrives from HP with the damn 2nd hd cable that's missing from inside my laptop.

Anyways, it would save me time and trouble if someone could tell me how I can manually enter a key on a newer HP laptop while installing windows?

THANKS!
 
I've never done what you are trying to do, but if I wanted to upgrade a vanilla Windows 8 machine and had a key for Windows 8 Pro, I'd go into the control panel for the vanilla machine, click on the control panel "Add Features to Windows 8" and follow the steps that it lays out.

Please post back to let the Forum know what happens!

If it doesn't work for you, you may also want to post directly to the HP support forum. It's not as easy to find as you might think. Here's a link. http://h30434.www3.hp.com/
 
Hmmm.. this is turning into a serious clusterfuck.

It's looking like HP builds their new laptops so they can NOT be straight plain OS installed. If you don't use the specific software as provided, along with ALL the god damned bloatware, it refuses it. There doesn't appear to be ANY way to MANUALLY install a key.

Also, I think THAT is giving me problems now.

1st) I went upstairs to brush my teeth, when I came back my Laptop had stopped streaming music, and there was a little white box on the screen trying to count down from the number '80'. In broken English it said something "Flashing to now, estimated time [number] remaining, do no shut down. Keyboard and Touchpad will no work".

My mouse was working, as were the rest of the systems, but sure enough, touchpad & keyboard weren't. I waited about a minute, but the timer kept resetting back to 80 for no reason. I rebooted, and the system did a BIOS restore and upgrade all proper automatically. It looks like HP tried to auto update and flash BIOS all by itself with no prompting from me and fucked it all up.

2nd) After the above, I did as Eman suggested and used my 8 Pro key in add features. It was accepted, and 8 Pro installed. However, it refused to activate on it's own, declaring I had used it previously, and needed to call in, which I did. I got it activated manually after telling the auto system the numbers it wanted t know.

3rd) Immediately after 2nd I added the key for Media Player Center, which was accepted and THAT installed. Upon completion and reboot, Windows 8 Pro is no longer registered, and I can't seem to make a connection with the server I was just talking to not 2 minutes before. My connection is fine, seeing as how I'm still on the interwebs *sigh*

I'm at a serious WTF stage here... between all vendors and providers moving to 'annual subscription' fees instead of a standing permanent license so they can keep us on the chain like junkies, and this bullshit.
 
Last edited:
Just return the POS laptop and get something that works. Plenty of options, for example ROG series from Asus.

You got screwed with that purchase. My wife had a dv6 and it didn't last more than a year.
 
I wonder what would happen if you used the "refresh your PC" option? It cautions you that it will toss all non-Metro applications, which sounds like just what you want.

Call up the Charms bar, click on the "Settings" charm, then click on "Change PC Settings." In the "General" heading, scroll down the right hand side of the screen a bit and you'll find the options to "Refresh" your PC or to "Remove Everything." If things are all gummed up on your HP then why not have some fun?

As a side note, a few years back I bought an HP laptop from their website. Within a week or so I knew it wasn't for me. HP was simply stellar about accepting it back. Far and away the simplest return I ever had. They even refunded my credit card the day I shipped it. For all they knew I had sent them a box with a brick in it and still they returned my money. Excellent Service!
 
Won't work, the BIOS has a key IN it, so when you go to install, it applies the key automatically, and if you're not installing HP's version of Win8, the key fails and halts the process :(
 
DoggyDaddi said:
Won't work, the BIOS has a key IN it, so when you go to install, it applies the key automatically, and if you're not installing HP's version of Win8, the key fails and halts the process :(
Click to expand...

I believe that's the case with most, if not all, new Windows 8 OEM PCs.

Have you tried disabling Secure/Safe boot?
 
Tsumi said:
I believe that's the case with most, if not all, new Windows 8 OEM PCs.

Have you tried disabling Secure/Safe boot?
Click to expand...

Yup, also tried enabling legacy support for bootup, nothing works. In the end, I ended up fucking up my install, and had to do a complete restore. This time around I managed to get things running a bit more smoothly, knowing what worked and what didn't. Didn't try updating to Pro, and didn't add Media Center.
 
The odd thing is that if the edition does not match, it should still let you put in your own key.

Windows should just be reading the key from the BIOS, and if it does not like it or does not need it, just ignore it.
 
This is simply crazy - you can't disable the "auto entering of the win 8 key" from the BIOS? Companies are now selling laptops which won't allow you to install an OS of your choosing? I mean I get the whole secure boot thing - locking things down to protect against bad things. But I always thought the idea was to have an option to turn that crap off...

I'm with others - return that POS and get a real laptop.
 
Does MS sell the full install for Win8? I thought they only sold upgrades, and the full version was a system builder thing. I'm trying to understand how the OP is doing the installation. If it's an upgrade edition, an OS to upgrade from needs to exist, and I don't believe Windows 8 Standard to Pro works that way. To upgrade Windows 8 Standard to Pro you'd use the "Add Features to Windows 8" from within Windows itself, not from an installation media.
 
Kongar said:
This is simply crazy - you can't disable the "auto entering of the win 8 key" from the BIOS? Companies are now selling laptops which won't allow you to install an OS of your choosing? I mean I get the whole secure boot thing - locking things down to protect against bad things. But I always thought the idea was to have an option to turn that crap off...

I'm with others - return that POS and get a real laptop.
Click to expand...

You can install other OS the windows 8 laptops from the different manufacturers. Every laptop I have worked on has had a way to disable secure boot and also switch between UEFI/CSM (legacy BIOS) modes. I have yet to see a laptop that did not have the ability to turn that off somewhere in the computer setup.
 
SuperSubZero said:
Does MS sell the full install for Win8? I thought they only sold upgrades, and the full version was a system builder thing. I'm trying to understand how the OP is doing the installation. If it's an upgrade edition, an OS to upgrade from needs to exist, and I don't believe Windows 8 Standard to Pro works that way. To upgrade Windows 8 Standard to Pro you'd use the "Add Features to Windows 8" from within Windows itself, not from an installation media.
Click to expand...

I believe they only have the OEM full version edition for system builders. And you're right about the way to upgrade to Pro.
 
I vote return it. The DV series is crap. Had a DV6 that overheated itself to death a couple years back and my brothers DV7 didnt even last 6 months before being sent in for repair.

That said you wont have any easier time with what you are trying to do with any other OEM machine.
 
ok, quick follow up.

The Samsung clone software that came with the drive won't even install, it's crap.. grabbed 'Reflect' and it looks good. Problem is the drive I'm trying to clone to is the Samsung 120gb 840. Now I've shrunk the install partition for the OS as much as I could, but it stopped at 340 but the actual partition use is under 60gb.

Not really sure how I can get the partition down to the actual used space so I can do a clone. the recovery partition is less then 20gb so I SHOULD be able to do this. *sigh*
 
DoggyDaddi said:
ok, quick follow up.

The Samsung clone software that came with the drive won't even install, it's crap.. grabbed 'Reflect' and it looks good. Problem is the drive I'm trying to clone to is the Samsung 120gb 840. Now I've shrunk the install partition for the OS as much as I could, but it stopped at 340 but the actual partition use is under 60gb.

Not really sure how I can get the partition down to the actual used space so I can do a clone. the recovery partition is less then 20gb so I SHOULD be able to do this. *sigh*
Click to expand...

Use partition Master.
 
I got absolutely SICK of dicking around... so I just made it simple. I installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64 (minimal install) since I have the retail DVD for it. After, I just installed Windows 8 Pro on top and saved nothing from the Win 7 install.

I am SO FUCKING SICK have have conditions and limitations written and enforced by Corporations crammed up my ass and down my throat more and more every day :(

I had to talk to 2 dozen techs from multiple 'LEVELS' of expedition procedure from Microsoft AND HP... and ALL of them said the exact same fucking thing. I couldn't do what I JUST FUCKING DID. *sigh*

Now I'm sure they will find a way to prevent what I ended up coming up with *grumble*
 
DoggyDaddi said:
I got absolutely SICK of dicking around... so I just made it simple. I installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64 (minimal install) since I have the retail DVD for it. After, I just installed Windows 8 Pro on top and saved nothing from the Win 7 install.

I am SO FUCKING SICK have have conditions and limitations written and enforced by Corporations crammed up my ass and down my throat more and more every day :(

I had to talk to 2 dozen techs from multiple 'LEVELS' of expedition procedure from Microsoft AND HP... and ALL of them said the exact same fucking thing. I couldn't do what I JUST FUCKING DID. *sigh*

Now I'm sure they will find a way to prevent what I ended up coming up with *grumble*
Click to expand...

I'm glad you got it working. I bet that was a fun day with HP and Microsoft.
 
Oh. My. Fucking. GAWD.

The 840 died.

I booted up this morning and found it had some how lost its Boot Record. So I went in, re-initialized (GFT I believe), but as the process completed there was an error. After that, the drive just disappeared.

Now, if it's plugged in, I can't even get my system to boot. *sigh*

Have you ever had days that.. quite honestly, the likelihood of committing a violent felony is in direct relation to how much alcohol you have in the house?

Oh yeah, the blu-ray drive I bought for the Lappy is bad too. To top the day off I've been trapped here because I'm expecting a furniture delivery and they STILL haven't shown up. *sob* I could use a hug
 
Reverie said:
I'm glad you got it working. I bet that was a fun day with HP and Microsoft.
Click to expand...

The limitations he has are due to Microsoft and their shit tastic licensing.

The fact they can't just slap the damn sticker on it and they have all this ass backwards way of licensing things for Windows 8.

Believe me, its a pita.
 
DoggyDaddi said:
Oh. My. Fucking. GAWD.

The 840 died.

I booted up this morning and found it had some how lost its Boot Record. So I went in, re-initialized (GFT I believe), but as the process completed there was an error. After that, the drive just disappeared.

Now, if it's plugged in, I can't even get my system to boot. *sigh*

Have you ever had days that.. quite honestly, the likelihood of committing a violent felony is in direct relation to how much alcohol you have in the house?

Oh yeah, the blu-ray drive I bought for the Lappy is bad too. To top the day off I've been trapped here because I'm expecting a furniture delivery and they STILL haven't shown up. *sob* I could use a hug
Click to expand...

What an awful run of bad luck with the system. :( I know lots of people love their SSDs, but if you still have an OS intact on the 1 TB drive, it might be time to just go with the factory config and not worry about it. Failing that, it's usually not expensive to order DVD restore media from the OEM.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
What an awful run of bad luck with the system. :( I know lots of people love their SSDs, but if you still have an OS intact on the 1 TB drive, it might be time to just go with the factory config and not worry about it. Failing that, it's usually not expensive to order DVD restore media from the OEM.
Click to expand...

the one saving grace, I never touched the 1Tb... so I can op the lappy just fine. It's just been freakishly agravating.
 
DoggyDaddi said:
the one saving grace, I never touched the 1Tb... so I can op the lappy just fine. It's just been freakishly agravating.
Click to expand...

The fact that you worked at it this long is pretty impressive. I would have given up or gotten distracted by something shiny after the first couple hours. :D
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
The fact that you worked at it this long is pretty impressive. I would have given up or gotten distracted by something shiny after the first couple hours. :D
Click to expand...

That's assuming the reason I worked on this so long WASN'T because I kept getting distracted by something shiny

LOL >_<

In any case.. I've STILL got a couple ideas to play with. Ordered a couple Toshiba 3TB drives for long term storage, thinking about using one of them temporarily to clone all the partitions I want copied over to the SSD. While on the 3Tb I can use Partition Magic to reduce the allocated size of the partitions to something that will fit on the SSD, and then move them over without screwing up the working OS on the 1Tb that came with the Lappy.

My big worry is that the OS on the primary partition may zilch out on me when it finds the pagefile cache isn't as big as it's supposed to be..

OH! I got a laugh yesterday. Finally got the new Board and Mem (M5A97 Rev2 & Corsair Vengenece 32Gb) to replace the parts that baked on me (yeah, real smoke, system burned.. had the case open to play with some fans, and while I was downstairs talking to someone one of my cats decided to chew on the cable for my SATA Blu-ray.. which shorted out and burned the cable, which caused a surge which cooked my MB and probably damaged the RAM. CPU was fine though).

I can build a system damn fast. From a completely torn down CM-Stacker Case, 4, drives and their 4in3 cage, Sata Blu, 2 vid cards, Xi-Fi Elite Pro, and all the little front panel connections, and a side panel of 4 fans. 35 minutes from start to finish.....

HOWEVER, it shouldn't have taken that long, but I forgot to take into account just how fucking tall those Corsair Vengence mem modules are. Fuck me, I had to set aside my True/Cu heat-sink & double fans for the stock AMD heatsink/fan that came with the processor because it's the only one I have that is able to fit :( *sigh*
 
Last edited:
Those damn cats. Always getting into places they shouldn't be. First the ceiling and now computers.

There should be a lolcat picture with:

I be in ur computaz chewing ur cablez.
 
Better yet:

It wasn't me, it was mouse, I SWEARZ!

h210D9AA2


Edit: This works pretty well too.

lolcat___computer_eating.jpg
 
jesus

these fuckers really are going to make me learn linux

that just sounds head explodingly painful OP
 
Kitties were fine (The twins join forces when committing a crime)... did they get off scott-free?

[/Will Smith ON]"Aw HELL Naw!"[/Will Smith OFF]

Moe & Jack-Jack got paddled good. So, while kitties are banned from the office now, if I have to leave for more then a minute or 3, I shut down & close up shop because the houses central A/C doesn't circulate well in a closed off room, and I lost a music storage drive to overheat a little while back. Was NOT cool :( [nyuk nyuk, pun NOT intended]
 
this thread reminds me why I will never update to windows 8. too much of a hassle
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top