New drive for laptop

[Scott Dyer HPN/NY]

My uncle had an HP laptop that I came to own after he died. The problem is that he seems to have encrypted the hard drive right from the start, so that the first screen that comes up requires putting in the password for the encryption. He hid it well. I can’t find it. It is gone. Can’t use machine because I can’t get past the encryption password requirements.

So, to recover the laptop, I thought about putting in a new drive and running from there. It strikes me that I would have to put a bios and operating system on the new hard drive, as well as whatever drivers are available for running the hardware, before I was able to boot up the machine with the new drive.

Is that accurate?

Without having any access to the current drive, and the bios residing thereon not to mention the operating system and the drivers, it seems like a fairly complicated job for recovery.

[Russell Holton]

What OS are you planning on installing? The BIOS, or at least the critical part should be burned into the memory of the machine. Slap a new drive in, boot off the install media and you're on your way.

Window 10 will have enough drivers to get you going. Hit the HP page for the drivers for your model for better performance.

[Scott Dyer HPN/NY]

What OS are you planning on installing? The BIOS, or at least the critical part should be burned into the memory of the machine. Slap a new drive in, boot off the install media and you're on your way.

Window 10 will have enough drivers to get you going. Hit the HP page for the drivers for your model for better performance.

Win10 is the plan. If the bios is, essentially firmware, that's good.

[Ray Tackett]

Without having any access to the current drive, and the bios residing thereon not to mention the operating system and the drivers, it seems like a fairly complicated job for recovery.

I never heard of BIOS being on the hard drive. If it's not in a hardware ROM, you'd have no way to get at the hard drive at all.

I defninitely recommend an SSD, the largest capacity for the price you're willing to pay. First, you need to find out what kind of drive you need (likely IDE or SATA). If SATA, there are several different form factors. If you have the laptop model number, you should be able to get the HD spec on line. If it doesn't make sense to you, c'mon back. Lotsta folks here, myself included, can help. I have one laptop which uses IDE, an older disk technology, but I found a SATA adapter and a mini SSD which are in a 2.5" HD case.

I find Windows 10 so desipicable that I have gone over to Ubuntu for new machines. I have old machines with XP and Windows 7. W7 is the end of my time as a Microsoft user.

Also, you might find the password is his birth date, or "passwword1234", or just "12345678", or something equally simple -- especially knowing personal stuff about him, e.g. spouse's first name, dog's name, etc.

If the BIOS Itself is password protected, there may or may not be a circumvention available on line. Can you hit escape during power-on and get into setup?

[Russell Holton]

Good point. What exactly does it say on that password? It might be a boot-up password that can be reset by following procedures found on the HP website. The only disk encryption I've used is BitLocker, but that's completely transparent to the user. No need for the key unless you reset things or try to put the drive into another computer.

[Bill Bridges]

My uncle had an HP laptop that I came to own after he died. The problem is that he seems to have encrypted the hard drive right from the start, so that the first screen that comes up requires putting in the password for the encryption. He hid it well. I can’t find it. It is gone. Can’t use machine because I can’t get past the encryption password requirements.

So, to recover the laptop, I thought about putting in a new drive and running from there. It strikes me that I would have to put a bios and operating system on the new hard drive, as well as whatever drivers are available for running the hardware, before I was able to boot up the machine with the new drive.

Is that accurate?

Without having any access to the current drive, and the bios residing thereon not to mention the operating system and the drivers, it seems like a fairly complicated job for recovery.

Scott,

Try this link from the HP website - https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04648973

Go to "Reset you computer when all other options fail."

[Scott Dyer HPN/NY]

Thanks, Ray. Yes, I'd go SSD, and it's a SATA. I know many hate Win10 but that's where I'm going....the laptop isn't for me so having it relatively standard is important.

[Scott Dyer HPN/NY]

Scott,

Try this link from the HP website - https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04648973

Go to "Reset you computer when all other options fail."

Thanks Bill, I'll look at that. The resetting there does assume you get to Windows login....I get a "disk encrypted" message right at start up and a demand for the password before getting to Windows. Guessing the password isn't in the cards...he was a type suspicious of the Deep State, and tech saavy, they were out to steal his stuff...so the other passwords I do have of his are of the "strong" variety.

[Paul Millner]

Can’t use machine because I can’t get past the encryption password requirements.

You can make a bootable USB memory stick on any other Win10 machine; you probably have to go into your machine's BIOS on startup, before you get the encryption password request) to tell the laptop to boot from the USB. The HP docs online can tell you whether that's hold down F1 on startup or whatever the magic BIOS access incantation is for your machine.

Before I retired gloriously 7 years ago, my former employer tried a number of drive encryption schemes. The early ones were easy to defeat... remove the internal drive, buy the $15 adapter to plug it into a USB port, and boot the machine either from USB as above, or from the new hard drive with Win10 installed. The earlier encryption schemes weren't smart enough to protect the drive if it was attached OTHER than as the boot drive. Since you'll now have the drive as an external drive, you'll be able to read all the files, and reformat the drive as non-encrypted. My former employer went to a more secure system... but that one did NOT require passwords, as noted above.

But, don't reuse the old drive... you'll really notice the machine is zippier with the non-mechanical drive, *and* ready for operation above 10,000 feet without head crashes!

Since yours is asking for a password, it may be just that easy to subvert!

Paul, subverting the dominant paradigm mode since adolescence

[Russell Holton]

Since yours is asking for a password, it may be just that easy to subvert!

It's worth a shot.

On the HP machines I work on F9 is the "choose boot device" key.

[Terry Carraway]

I find Windows 10 so desipicable that I have gone over to Ubuntu for new machines. I have old machines with XP and Windows 7. W7 is the end of my time as a Microsoft user.

Have you tried Classic Shell?

It makes Win10 look and feel like Win 7.

Like the old days, we would run Win98, but with the Win95 user interface. I don't remember how, but I know it did it on all our machines.

And here is the link to install the Win7 games onto a Win 10 machine - https://winaero.com/get-windows-7-games-for-windows-10/

[Ray Tackett]

Have you tried Classic Shell?

It makes Win10 look and feel like Win 7.

Like the old days, we would run Win98, but with the Win95 user interface. I don't remember how, but I know it did it on all our machines.

And here is the link to install the Win7 games onto a Win 10 machine - https://winaero.com/get-windows-7-games-for-windows-10/

I have not tried anything with W10. I consider it to be spyware by design, and updates are frequently defective. Office as a subscription is completely unacceptable. As one who started with toggle switche, punched paper ta;e, and teletypes, Linux is fine. I have dual boot with W7 on a couple, and run Libre Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, and UltraEdit on both systems. They all share settings and work identically on either operating system.

[Scott Dyer HPN/NY]

You can make a bootable USB memory stick on any other Win10 machine; you probably have to go into your machine's BIOS on startup, before you get the encryption password request) to tell the laptop to boot from the USB. The HP docs online can tell you whether that's hold down F1 on startup or whatever the magic BIOS access incantation is for your machine.

Unfortunately, doesn't work on this machine. It is forced right to the encryption logon page. I flash through the BIOS screen with no time to select any option there. Gonna install a new HD, with Win10 on a USB stick to install that.

[Terry Carraway]

I have not tried anything with W10. I consider it to be spyware by design, and updates are frequently defective. Office as a subscription is completely unacceptable. As one who started with toggle switche, punched paper ta;e, and teletypes, Linux is fine. I have dual boot with W7 on a couple, and run Libre Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, and UltraEdit on both systems. They all share settings and work identically on either operating system.

You can still buy Office outright, you do not need a subscription. And the new ones, allow multiple computer installs. I think the one I have allows up to 5 computers.

[Russell Holton]

Unfortunately, doesn't work on this machine. It is forced right to the encryption logon page. I flash through the BIOS screen with no time to select any option there.

Try tapping F9 as soon as the HP logo comes up. It may be set not to display the menu, but it's still there.