The HD was bad, so I replaced with an SSD, but I seem to get it formatted in an acceptable way to the HP recovery DVDs, or even a new install of Windows 10. I've tried turning off secure boot and using MBR, and turning secure boot on and using GPT. I formatted the SSD on another computer using Windows 8 in repair mode. Sometimes I get message saying "something went wrong" and it turns off or reboots. This is after a long wait with nothing happening. Or with secure boot on, a message saying boot could not authorize.
Oh, and before, I could get past this, but got a read error on the copy from the Windows 8 DVD recovery disk. So I had another copy sent. I know these are good because I was able to copy all 3 DVDs to the SSD after formating it as NTFS on another computer. HP disk check is good. I've done a long disk check on the SSD. So it has to be some combination of secure boot with Windows 8 that has me baffled!
So any suggestions?