Win 7 OEM Install on New HDD (HP Laptop)

If your HP PC or laptop dates back prior to December 2010 and you have to replace your failing (or failed) Hard Drive with a new one, you may run into trouble reinstalling your operating system properly from the OEM recovery disks (if you have them). You can get replacement OEM recovery disks from HP for a small fee but these will be a problem installing as well. Your OEM may be willing to support you for a fee, but that probably won't be necessary.

Your new SATA HDD is probably using the Advanced Format which uses disk space more efficiently (something about 4k sector sizes instead of the old 512k). You can waste a heap of time pulling your hair out because the OEM version may load but won't update and won't network properly.

Go to this link
Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver | HP® Support
to download and install the "Rapid Storage Technology" driver "sp5138.exe."

Then have fun updating for the next two days :)

Thanks for the heads-up.

THe HP factory install is the worst possible install of Win7 one can have, larded with the biggest load of corrupting bloatware in the industry which even if cleaned up still has ruined the OS. That's why most tech enthusiasts would never run such an install but instead choose to Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7
without the bloatware and duplicate utilities which interfere with better versions built into Win7.