[TouchPad General] DoubleStuff:
That was a very clear description, and I am very motivated to "catch my prey" and to have Android on "Pale Blue" once again! Last time I had partial success using your first method:

1) Let Battery Drain, so its OFF. ( This may take some time, because "Pale Blue" now has a black screen. )

2) Connect to charger every so often, and unplug if you don't see the "Home key dance"

3) Once the "home key dance" is detected, then keep charging until you see the low battery symbol

4) Baby sit for 30 minutes and watch moboot menu come up.

Obviously for this method, the "Home Key" must work at least once.....when moboot screen appears.

otherwise I will have to try your experimental Method #2, to get the BIG USB symbol....

for this method #2, I had an interesting idea and we will see what @HP_TOUCHPAD thinks of it. So currently boot.img has a default of "Android" in the moboot menu, and this is a problem if "home key" will not work. So my idea is to use Novacom Repair tool to modify the boot.img file more specifically modify the file called moboot.default instead of text string "Android" I will put "Recovery" as the default, then when I run the command:

novacom boot mem:// < boot.img

Using this method I will not need to use the "Home key" to navigate to Recovery with volume key, then press home key. It will boot into recovery by default. Because even though I am rusty after being 4 years not thinking about hp touchpads, I do remember my two journeys into HP RAMDISK and /boot, see these posts and look at the attachments.

Journey into HP RAMDISK: Using /boot from uImage.

https://xdaforums.com/t/hp-touchpad-novacom-repair-android.3960435/page-3#post-80166451

and

Journey how files get populated into /boot

https://xdaforums.com/t/hp-touchpad-novacom-repair-android.3960435/page-4#post-80178857

latest update on "Pale Blue"

Its plugged into the charger now, doing the "Home Key dance", while I have tape on the Volume key close to the power.

and just now the low battery symbol came up, so in 30 minutes, the moboot screen, or the BIG USB will display on the screen, but because I can't properly baby sit ( I can maybe see it every 3 minutes or so ), I will leave the tape on the volume key, So if by chance the moboot screen displays the tape will keep it scrolling through the selections on the screen, until I can observe it, then I will take the tape off. Or maybe the BIG USB symbol will show up directly. Time will tell, this is an experiment.

*** After 26 minutes, I was not there live, but it appears to have not booted into moboot screen, but went directly to BIG USB symbol using the new "AUTOMATED BABY SITTING TECHNIQUE" - @HP_TOUCHPAD new method #2 technique worked!

So while waiting for comments from HP_TOUCHPAD about my boot.img question, I thought I would boot the unaltered boot.img from PIE with this novacom command:

TRY #1

novacom boot mem:// < C:\Users\PaulC\Desktop\EvervolvPIE\ev_tenderloin-9-userbuild-2019.08.30/boot.img

It first booted and I saw the round HP logo, and I thought I would then see moboot menu, but no I got the "PALE BLUE SCREEN" again!!! --- The prey got away, but I am not done yet!!!

My next plan is to drain the battery and try again but this time boot up the boot.img from WIPE_ALL !!

TRY #2

novacom boot mem:// < C:\Users\PaulC\Desktop\TouchpadZips

\Automatic_Wipe_All_and_Create_Android_with_1GB_Swap_Partition\boot.img ( on hold for now )

So this time I was actually watching it live at the 30 minute mark, when the display changed from the Low Battery Icon to the Moboot screen, but the tape on the Volume button caused it to start scrolling though the moboot menu items, I took the tape off and put it on WebOS recovery, but the "Home button" does not select, currently. So I am stuck....for now.

What is curious to me, is that in TRY #1, I am not sure how it got to BIG USB, I was not there live, but the tape on volume must have caused it to scrolled though moboot menu, then next time I looked at it was BIG USB. Now in TRY #2 when I watched it live I saw it scroll though moboot and I quickly took the tape off, and I am stuck on moboot.

So after about 15 minutes, with the battery at 18%, the "home key" worked, I pressed and held it for like 2 seconds, it might be because of the larger charge of 18%, anyway. I booted into RECOVERY, not GIANT USB symbol. I will let it charge up more fully, and then will load of the more stable Android, ( JCSullins CM11 )

So at 39% charge I decided to "just do it"

So we did it!! After going into Recovery, then flashing WIPE_ALL, JC11 and HPMAX1674, I am up and running! Thanks to @HP_TOUCHPAD

Long live the hp touchpad, remember what HP_TOUCHPAD says,

"This device is unbrickable, unbreakable, unbelievable."