*HP ENVY 17 & 17 3D (2XXX series) Owners Lounge*

I will stand corrected on this. I based my assumption on the fact that even if 60HZ...in 3D would give 30HZ per image...which would still be fluid to the human eye...didn't know that it would be forced. Good for my knowledge bank!

 

if the disk is still banging away I wouldn't worry to much, yet. but if you get worried you could call HP and ask. or use the chat service which I actually prefer

 

After step two (Copying files required to restore the hard drive) finished, it spit out the last recover disk and asked if any other extra disks were included, I clicked skip because none were, then it got 4% done and hasn't moved since.

(Thanks for the fast reply)

 

It actually just said that the recovery finished but now it only loads a screen which says BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart and restarting does nothing... try again?

 

oh -- something has indeed gone wrong. I'd start over and contact HP if things don't go right.

 

Well now I'm a bit worried, I hope everything works out on the second install, if it doesn't do you think I will have to send the laptop back in?

 

I wonder if the RAID fix would work. If you have a separate Windows 7 DVD or if not...here are some instructions...you could try this first...

A. For those who have a Windows 7 Operating system disk…put in the DVD drive, reboot and
You will be confronted with a prompt to hit any key to boot from DVD. Do that and you will get “Windows is loading Files”, followed by a screen asking language, etc. Choose your native language and click next, which prompts the next screen




At this screen, you choose “Repair Your Computer”



The following screen appears and you choose next.




From this screen, you follow the prompts until you reach a C:\ prompt. At the C:\ prompt you type the following:

BootRec /FixBoot Then hit enter…you will get another C:\ prompt, where you will type

BootRec /FixMbr After having done this, you will reboot into your Envy 17 3D with a fully functional operating system.

(Thank you to Cam121 of Laptop Reviews - Notebook Reviews and Netbook Computer News & Reviews for troubleshooting this fix.)

Alternative FIX

For those of you who DO NOT have a Windows 7 OS Disk, you can still get an effective outcome.

When You receive the message NO BOOTABLE OS Detected, put Disk 1 of the HP Recovery Disk set back in the DVD drive. When the disk begins to load…and it says “Windows is loading files”…hit the EJECT button on your DVD drive…this will force an error in the installation and immediately bring you to a C:\ Prompt

At the C:\Prompt, type

BootRec /FixBoot Then hit enter…you will get another C:\ prompt, where you will type

BootRec /FixMbr
After having done this, you will reboot into your Envy 17 3D with a fully functional operating system.

 

Is that RAID boot fix for if it is currently in place on your hard drives? Because the whole reason I am recovering windows is because I disabled RAID and the recovery disks I made myself did not work so I had to get some from HP. When I do (hopefully) finish this recovery will RAID still be enabled?

 

If you ever use the Envy outside in the bright sun (hey I dunno it happened to me last week) it is every bit of worth it.

 

So I tried to do this but when I boot from the recovery disks HP sent me, there is never even an option for the language, date, or time and all that stuff. It is just a grey/silver wavy background with the HP recovery manager that only gives me the option to do the factory image recovery... I don't think I am doing anything wrong since there is only the option to do that or cancel but I am not really sure, and I have now tried it 2 times, it keeps getting stuck on the final step (Restoring files to the hard drive) which is after it is done using the provided disks, it always stops at 4%

 

Put disk 1 back in and reboot. Remove the disk as it's loading and see if you can get to a C prompt

 

Aaaah okay I see, then I don't have to be so confused why it was on 60Hz

Thank you for clearing things up

 

It never takes me to the C prompt, it shows the error and I can hit enter to continue or esc to quit both lead to the computer restarting

 

Sorry to hear this. It won't hurt to call the special Envy tech number that's listed on your black rectangular insert in the box on the backside of the Thank You For Buying an Envy.

Maybe some more member suggestions might also help...

KJ

 

Have you try put in the Windows repairs disc that you made? The one that after you made the recovery discs, will prompt and ask you to do?

 

well I have to admit I based my assumption on the fact that TriDef would take control and that 3D always runs in 120Hz mode. So your reasoning made perfect sense and helped me think through some things too!

 

bacnation: I think you need to go back to the combination of advice from bobmitch and KillaJoe:

1. put in disk1 of the recovery disks that HP just sent you, and reboot. Follow the instructions on the screen for recovery. if that doesn't work, then:
2. HP's prescribed solution to your problem won't work, and you have to call the Envy support number. Maybe there is something wrong with the recovery disks HP sent you, or maybe they sent you the wrong ones. As unlikely as that is, right now I can't think of any other explanation to the fact that you cannot recover your system with the recovery disks that HP has prescribed.

At this point I think I would concentrate on restoring your laptop to its "as-shipped" configuration, using HPs own instructions as they help you through this. let us know how this turns out!

 

You said that you made system recovery disks of your own. The only thing wrong with them is that they default to RAID and you disabled it. So you will need to run the fix. Can you load the image off the disks you made?

 

this is what suggest to me that there is somethign wrong with the recovery disks themselves, or that you don't have all of them. I really think its up to HP now to guide you through this

 

Here is the entire guide should you want to try a recovery using YOUR recovery disks

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...ay-fix-hp-envy-17-3d-pavillion-notebooks.html

 

yea -- bobmitch is making a good point. whether you do this yourself or under HP's guidance, you need to remember that you disabled RAID and thats where the trouble started.

Edit: If the HP recovery disks don't work, that suggests that HP does not know how to recover from this error, as the "shipped" configuration is RAID0 and you have disabled that. I would have thought the HP recovery disks could recover from that, but maybe not...

 

Many on this board have disabled RAID and successfully recovered using the recovery disks they created. This is not a bad option and has been proven time and time again. I love my Envy...but calling tech support is always an adventure. We have North American tech support in the states...and frankly...they are just OK.

Do you still have your recovery disks?

 

Maybe wrong time to ask, but I don't really get this RAID things, I think someone has explained it, or maybe not but is it just for SSD?

 

SSD: just a HDD using silicon and not any rotating parts. this is unrelated to RAID


RAID is just a term that simply means the data is combined or merged onto two identical disks. take, for example, a single file called "test.docx". when you write "test.docx" to the disk, half of it goes to disk0 and the other have to disk1. when you retrieve that file again, the controller has to fetch its parts from each drive and assemble them back together.

the term "striped" is often used for "RAID 0". setting up RAID for the first time is basically like taking a paper shredder to a piece of paper and putting the odd numbered shreds on one disk and the even-numberd shreds on the other disk. to assemble that piece of paper again, you have to combine the shreds from each disk together again.

All this is done in the name of performance -- you can read and write faster to a pair of disks in striped RAID0 than you can to a single disk. thats just because you have two firehoses transporting data instead of one.

A Solid State Drive (SSD) is typically not striped, for a couple of reasons. rarely do you see two SSDs in a consumer laptop, so the point is "moot" as we say. But the larger reason is that the SSD itself is so fast that, especially for consumer laptops, the cost of two SSDs is prohibitive for the benefit-- I suspect two stripped SSD's might be faster than the input/output system of the laptop can handle anyway (it can't drink from both firehoses, because the volume is too high!) , but I haven't verified that...

 

Oh I see, thank you I love how much smarter I get by being on here ^^ No jk but thanks

 

I am running striped 240GB Vertex 3's in my Envy. It is blazing fast but not quite fast enough to saturate SATA3. The envy handles this just fine.

 

sweet! thanks fiver5 thats awesome. ok there you go -- stripped SSDs for the worlds fastest I/O system. in the future -- this makes one wonder why do we need to put an HDD controller on top of silicon memory anyway? of course, its because the OS expects data storage to be organized that way, and the hardware is (currently) architected for that. But if the prices of silicon memory continue to drop, we could see a major change -- architecture more like smart phone or tablet. anyone for Windows 8 preloaded into flash memory via DMA channels without a disk controller?

 

Anyone have news or hear any rumors regarding upcoming coupons for the Envy 17 3D?

 

I tried to make those disks but I must have done it improperly because the computer will not recognize the files on them. I have tried all of your guy's suggestions as best as I have been able to removing disk 1 when it is loading files or following through completely with the entire process, nothing seems to be working *could just be that I am making some big error). I was wondering why the recovery disks give no option to set the time date etc? They just go straight to trying to fix the problem by reloading all the files... Any ways I am waiting for a call from a HP case manager and since I have not been able to fix it myself I may just have to send the laptop back in so they can do it... The one question I have is could the recovery disks not be cooperating with my HDD because they shipped with a different HDD (the regular recovery CDs are on backorder for like 20 days) but I did not install the new HDD, I am using the disks with the ones that came inside the laptop.

 

I have ordered and received 2 of the 2000 series self-configured units. The first one I received was RAID'ed. I returned it the next day. I ordered again, after talking to sales people at HP. They appeared to have no more information than was available on the HP Shopping Web site. However, the sales guy did alert his supervisor. I got a call, about a week after order the second unit, from "Sam at HP Engineering" giving me a service ticket number "in case" the second unit shipped set up with RAID. They didn't want me to return but ship it to service for a reconfigure.

I got the second unit about a 10 days ago, set up correctly. It is very nice, even if the process was fairly goofy. I needed to down load the Intel tools, because Windows 7 didn't appear to recognize C: as a SSD. But Intel's tools work well and automatically.

 

Just call up and ask. I didn't have any coupon codes and asked for a discount and the guy had no problem. I got $200 off total. $150 off the price of the laptop and $50 combined off the accessories I purchased.

 

I can't get coolsense to update to 2.0. I downloaded 2.0 from HP and when I run it, it runs fine but coolsense doesn't actually get updated. I found that when I run the exe, it just makes itself a new folder called SP52814 in SwSetup and dumps the new files in there.

Any ideas?

 

Go inside that folder and look for the executable...run it from the folder...should update Coolsense to 2.0. When I did it, the entire graphic for Coolsense looked different...

 

The folder as 3 files in it, 2 are executable. One is just called Setup, the other is called HPcoolsensesetup or something like that. I tried both and they gave me an error that something needed for the setup wasn't found. I have already tried erasing the folder and reloading it and got the same error. I'm trying one more time.

EDIT: Just tried again, it made the folder again with the 3 files inside 2 executable. If I run either of the two it gets about half way and then says, "There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program run as part of the setup did not finish as expected. Contact your support personnel or package vender."

 

I'm sorry I'm just not able to follow the storyline here, and since everything is so confused, i.e. what recovery DVDs were used with what HDDs and the whole history of what has happened, I think you're better off to return everything back to the way it was shipped to you, and let HP support take it from here, even if it means sending the laptop back to HP. Make sure you dont' have any after market HDD in there when sending back to HP or trying to use HP's recovery disks

 

If I remember correctly, After running the installer. I had no progress bar and it seemed to not work at all. But after running CS it worked perfect.

Did you try uninstalling the original one?

 

this is probably a silly question, since this forum is about Sandy Bridge Envy 17s with 2xxx-series model numbers -- but have you verified via HP Support Assistant that HP CoolSense 1.0 is installed and running properly?

 

Did you install 2.0? :O

 

Just got my envy 17 yesterday..it was better then the first 2 I received, still not perfect. There is a tiny gap on the right side, you can have a paper slipped in there, unlike the left side. Anyone have this same issue?

I'm not sure if my HDD is 7200 or 5400 (1.5tb), it doesnt say the type of HD installed on device manager, just RAID 0. Will get into the BIOS later tonight.

 

congratulations! the 1.5TB option is 2x750 7200 rpm, and you can probably check that in your spec sheet as well. Also -- install hwinfo32 that will tell you all kinds of things about the hardware! BTW, a pair of 7200s should scream in RAID0

 

Haha, ya, I'm running 1.0.1.4 right now.

 

I think you're right, thanks for trying to help me out, also thanks to everyone else who tried to help me. I think I am going to have to return the laptop after I speak with someone so I was wondering if anyone else has sent their laptop in for repairs and how long I should expect them to take to return it.

 

Looks like Dell is running a special deal:

Get the 17.3" Alienware M17x 3D and save an extra $100 with coupon $PN4J$SW4WKGM6 at Dell. For example get this laptop with an Intel Core™ i7 2630QM 2.0GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache), 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (2DIMMS), 1.5GB GDDR5 Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M, 320GB 7,200RPM HDD, 17.3-inch WideFHD 1920x1080 120Hz WLED w/ NVIDIA 3D Vision Bundle and Wireless 802.11 g/n for $2074 - $275 discount - $100 coupon = $1699.

Offer expires May 27 or 400 coupon uses, whichever comes first.

 

Yeah...one year warranty. I got my Envy for less with a four year! It's an OK deal...but at some point, you want to upgrade at least RAM and HDD.

 

bacnation, if you had this laptop 21 days or less, you can return it for a full refund or exchange. Under 21 days, NEVER agree to a fix, they most likely will end up damaging the laptop one way or another. Just ask for a brand new shiney Envy.

KJ

 

Hi guys... coming back from the DV7tqe !!!!!!

My baby is coming this 5/27

Offtopic: Do you know any good NAS, what do you think about this one (Synology DiskStation DS211J: Amazon.com: Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS211J (White): Electronics )

 

This is sort of random but has anyone else noticed a lot of small scratches on any disk you put in your envy? (Around the outer edge)

 

I've had The Sims Medieval in for over a month. Just checked and no scratches.

 

If anyone is interested, I'm trying the Zagg protector for my Envy 17 and put a small review up here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/581229-review-zagg-invisibleshield-my-envy-17-pics.html

Summary: if you really want protection for your Envy, it might be a good choice, but it's definitely not perfect and there are some details you might want to know before buying. But it DOES protect.

 

Jose great to see you back! congratulations on your new Envy -- interesting things have been happening over here, esp with regards to throttling tests.

I have an HP NAS for about 5 years now, and its been flawless. sits on my wireless network and I just set up a backup job to copy stuff over. but if backup is all you need, there are ways to attach a USB drive to certain wireless routers, which I might do when the old HP gives up. good luck on your're search I'm sure the streaming capabillities today are much improved over what I have