I'm hoping you guys can help a guy who knows just enough to get himself into trouble.
I just bought the HP Envy 17t-j100 Quad Edition with the 1TB hybrid drive and the 240GB SSD Upgrade Kit that you can get on the Customize and Buy page. I wanted to put the OS onto the SSD because I haul my laptop all over the countryside for work and it takes a beating and the SSD withstands that kind of treatment better. After a huge fiasco of trying to get mounting brackets and connecting cable that should come with the kit but don't, I finally got the thing physically installed in my second drive bay.
I tried using Link Removed to clone it over, as that was the cloning software that came with the SSD but apparently that version was incompatible with 8.1. So I bought the newer version, but apparently Link Removed won't work if the drives are that different in size. I finally had a repair shop guy migrate it over for me but he had to enable Legacy booting to do it and now I have this obnoxious message in the lower right part of my screen:
"Windows 8.1
SecureBoot isn't configured correctly
Build 9600"
That is a minor annoyance and if I have to live with it, so be it. But I also find myself having difficulty downloading drivers from HP because now that I have a new SSD instead of the original hybrid drive, my specs no longer conform to the specs of my model of laptop and HP can't figure out which drivers are the right ones for my machine. I know I should have had the guy at the shop keep it and finish the job properly but I need my computer for my work and can't be without it overnight. My old laptop died and I'm limping along with this one as best I can until I get it up to speed.
The guy from the shop told me that I would have to disable Legacy booting if I wanted to get rid of that message. He also told me that to do that I would need to create a bootable disk and then re-install 8.1 after disabling Legacy booting on the SSD. This is the point at which my limited expertise fails me.
I am having trouble creating the bootable USB drive because when I try to download the file and enter my product key it says, "This product key cannot be used to install a retail version of WIndows 8.1." I take that to mean that my pre-installed 8.1 product key is not the same as the type of key needed for the download. So I'm stuck there.
My main question is this: Will it work to just do a full re-install using the existing 8.1 that was migrated from the hybrid drive to my SSD or will I end up screwed because I can't find the right drivers once I remove the few drivers the shop guy installed for me because I'm on a different type of drive than HP recognizes?
Any help you guys give me will be greatly appreciated and give you lots of cool points in my book.