Now there's a thought.... which hadn't occurred to me until now..  Thanks for the suggestion, Dave, I'll give that a go after I've snuck in another 40 winks.  Haven't had much sleep over the last 3 -4 days and I'm beginning to feel a bit weary.

Jafo

reply 18

Bottom line....throw out any HP and never buy another...

 

[I'll stop short at the suggestion that the upgrade to Win 10 will fix it... you might have a fit of apoplexy] ....

Actually, this HP has been a great little machine that has served me well.  This is the first time it has given me any trouble.... save the fact it refuses to install the Win 10 downgrade., but then that's more a blessing than a hinderance.  The Win 10 files download without issue, but that's as far as it goes and I get some 'generic' message that my product key is invalid, which it isn't. 

A check with HP amd MS confirmed it is legit, with both companies suggesting that a corrupt or missing system file may be preventing Win 10 initialising and writing new files to effect the necessary changes.   Thing is, I never bothered investigating it because I don't want Win 10 on this machine, but now that I think on it, the two things, the rejection of Win10 and my HDDs being incorrectly identified, could very well be related.

Anyhow, I'll try out the latest round of suggestions and see what's what after a snooze.... though I don't think disabling Legacy support in the CMOS is something I'll try as yet.... having repacked my corded mouse and keybord and not wanting to pull out heaps of stuff down in the shed to get at them.

RedneckDude

reply 21

Quoting Jafo,

reply 7

Probably just an issue of using Win 8.1 ....the OS you swear by should also be the OS you swear at...

Never saw that issue, and I have 8.1 on several rigs with SSDs and platters.

Same here!  It wasn't an issue on this machine until something changed in the not so distant past.  I don't know how, when or why, but it wasn't an issue just prior to Xmas.  The last time I recall performing the desired maintenance was December 7, so it went guts up sometime in the last 3 months.

Like  I said... it's either a Win 8.1 OS issue or an Eye Dee 10 Tee issue [tho you usually know what you're doing].

Try uninstalling every Win update since Dec. 7 .  10 isn't the only OS that has updates screw up perfectly good systems.

I assume you've Googled ...

Now there's another valid point.... an eff up because of Windows Update.  Could well be it is the culprit

Anyhow..... for a bit.

Okay, so I have tried everything and come up empty handed.  There seems to be something missing that identifies hardware, namely SSDs, and nothing I've tries has resolved it.  Therefore, as loathe as I am to do it, given how much time I've invested to set things up as I want, I'm going to do a factory reset and start from scratch.

Yeah, tried that, but certain updates will not be uninstalled... especially those connected to Win 10.   Anyway, this factory reset will eliminate those and I can then go through those updates that are necessary, while igning/hiding the rest.  I have a list of those 'less desirable' ones, so I know what to look out for.

I make full image back ups so when, not if, disasters like this happen, I can load the image up and put everything back as it was without starting from scratch.  I have too many programs and updates installed to reinstall if I did that  I use ToDo Workstation. Don't you have a backup plan, Mark? I try to image my system at least once a month, or as needed.

As far as windows ten being a downgrade from windows eight that is actually confusing. Eight is one of the worst operating systems out there. It's vista all over again

I did have backup images on an external drive, but somehow they got wiped when the drive got accidentally formatted.  It was one of the first things I turned to, so you can imagine I did some cussing when I couldn't find the images.  I'm still not sure how the drive got reformatted.  I don't recall doing it... all I know is that the images were on drive F, along with a few other odds and end, then next I know the drive is empty.

Oh well, nothing else of importance was lost so I'm not too upset.  Besides, the machine could do with a reset anyow, it is getting a little sluggish compared to when I first got it.

Actually, I reckon that you wouldn't notice the difference between this machine with Win 8.1 and an identical one with Win 7, not the way I have it set up.  Up until now I've not had a problem with Win 8.1, and even then I believe the cause may well be a Windows Update.... one which I cannot uninstall for some weird reason. 

I won't go into what I think is behind it.  Let's just say I'm taking a break from conspiracy theories cos my doctor reckons my tinfoil hat is reflecting the sun away and I've become vitamin D deficient as a result.

Haha

Okay, so I reset this little beastie to factory settings and all is well again in the computing world of starkers.  My maintenance proggies are doing those previously unavailable tasks and everything else is just that bit snappier.

Anyway, thanks again to all who offered ideas to resolve the issue, I appreciate it.