HP ENVY 14 Sceptre with DEAD SSD, HP wants $390 for new HD, no other DRIVES work! HELP!

I am appealing to the experts here as I am now stuck with 4 UNUSABLE Laptops I purchased from a wholesaler of HP products. Nobody seems to be able to help me. Its been 2 months. Here is my situation.

I purchased 4 HP ENVY 14 Sceptre laptops 3090CA for what i thought was a good deal @ $500 a piece (for myself and family / friends). The catch was, they came without their SSD hard drives. No big deal I thought as I've replaced dozens of hard drives in the past in various models of PCs, Laptops, using all types of operating systems from Windows, MacOS, to Linux.

I looked up the type of hard drives these models use and its:

HP part # 675508-001
128GB MSATA MSSD Solid State Drive SSD Mini Pci-e

I figured I would buy a 256GB MSATA MSSD SSD Mini Pci-e and have double the storage capacity as its original had. Ordered 4 of them from a supplier, and all 4 would NOT work. They are recognized in the BIOS but I could not get windows to load on them. Kept giving me an error of BIOS does not recognize your HD. I tried every "fix" i could find on the net, from upgrading the BIOS to zero'ing out the drive, formating it to the specs used for SSD drives, nothing. I then tried installing Ubuntu, which recognized the drive and allowed me to install. But when i finished loading Ubuntu and it was time for the laptop to boot up off the SSD drive on its own, it gave me an error msg saying no compatible hard drive detected. I then thought maybe the drives were defective, and sent them all back. I figured its best to play it safe and just use what original specs said... so I found a seller who sells "675508-001 128GB MSATA MSSD Solid State Drive SSD Mini Pci-e" drive for $90 (although it does not show the 675508-001 part number anywhere on the drive... actually shows a different one) and tried it. Same problem as with the 256GB! Spent hours on the phone with HP and numerous computer shops around town, bottom line is it seems ONLY the HP model SSD drive with part # 675508-001
(128GB MSATA MSSD Solid State Drive SSD Mini Pci-e) will work with these laptops and they want $390 for EACH drive (thats INSANE). I am willing to pay the normal $100-$150 but no one has these drives apparently except for HP! Does ANYONE know of any possible workaround I could try? I was thinking of maybe using a custom USB key (since I CAN boot from USB) and then have the USB key tell the OS thats installed on the HD to boot?

Please I really dont have $ to afford $390 per drive right now, and I would feel pretty bad selling these off to someone else knowing I screwed them. The wholesaler told me yeah just put in a HD for $60-90 bucks and you're set. They wont refund me my money and he says he's stuck with more of these units he can't sell either now that this HD issue seems to be holding these laptops hostage.

Thanks for nothing HP! I will NEVER buy any of your products again! BUYER BEWARE!... if your equipment ever dies outside of warranty or something... you may be FORCED to pay 5X more than average to fix your equipment because they intentionally make it so that you have to buy standard parts from THEM at SKYHIGH prices!

 

anyone? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease

 

That's pretty much how every PC manufacturer works, not just HP. Do you think Apple, Dell, Samsung, or anyone else would sell you the replacement parts at cost?

Anyways, check the HP Envy Spectre 14 owner's thread on how they installed replacement drives. This person installed a Crucial M500 240GB SSD so it seems that you don't have to use the part that was specified. It sounds like it is some BIOS setting preventing you from installing Windows.

If you are getting the error A required cd/dvd drive device driver is missing, it may be you are using the wrong USB port. Try switching USB ports (that's how it was on my Samsung Series 9 as you can't use the USB 3.0 port to install Windows 7). If you are using an external DVD drive, try using a USB flash drive to install windows. Or vice versa.

 

Yeah, but Apple, Dell, Samsung and every other laptop manufacturer I know of allow you to replace your existing hard drive with another brand / model as long as its compatible with your computers specs. This is the first laptop i've ever seen that does not allow you to BOOT off of any other hard drive other than the manufacturers. The user who installed a crucial, installed it as a SECONDARY hard drive, he's not booting off of it. Thats not the issue with me. I can install ANYTHING i want on these drives, its just that the BIOS is preventing me from BOOTING off of it. I've checked every BIOS setting there is, this isn't my first drive install either. I've worked with hundreds over the past 16 years. Even 4 local shops, each given 1 of the laptops said they're stumped as well. You think its fair HP wants to charge me $360 for a 128GB HD in 2013? and PURPOSELY make it so that I can't go to any other hardware vendor? Would YOU buy such a product? I can tell you I sure as hell wont. No other manufacturer has ever done that as far as I know. Not even Apple! I can get aftermarket hard drives for my iPhones / iPads, and even they work. This is ludicrous!

Anyone give any though about my USB key idea? Would it be possible?

 

Anyone give any though about my USB key idea? Would it be possible?

 

Does this forum offer people any help? Or is its sole purpose to push $ALES to the big corps who like to take as much advantage of us as possible. I'm asking 1 question here to bypass having to spend $400 on a 128GB hard drive for my laptop since thats what HP is trying to FORCE me to do. I have a $90 hard drive that OUTPERFORMS their $400 drive but the only way I will be able to use it is to have my laptop boot off a USB stick first, and then my aim is to tell the OS on the drive to start. (my ONLY limitation is the laptops BIOS which will not allow BOOTING from any drive other than HPs).

So again, I ask... can anybody here please help me???

 

Can you try this thread here mate? http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/729085-envy-15t-j000-msata-ssd-hdd-fresh-install-msata-boot-drive.html I don't have the 14 so this is as far as I can go! I can feel our frustration so I hope I could help.

 

Did these machines originally ship with Windows 8?

Do these machines use 2.5" drives as well as mSATA drives?



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I faced a similar issue, I was trying to replace my HDD with SSD.
What worked was cloning the original hard disk.
My laptop came with Windows 8