Microsoft technical scam - HP Pavilion laptop remotely taken over

[Becka5]

I fell for the Microsoft technical scam that was hidden in a Yahoo news item.  My laptop seized up, there was a loud repetitive siren and emergency alert.  I rang the number and the person remoted over to my laptop for an hour or two to help me get rid of the virus.  McAfee say no damage done after getting me to check Task Manager but been advised elsewhere to have a full factory reset before I can log in to things again.  This is in case there is any spyware or similar installed.  How do I go about this?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You can use the HP cloud recovery tool to make a bootable USB recovery drive that should install the original HP factory software and drivers:

Here is the link for how to use the utility.  You will need a 32 GB USB flash drive for this:

HP Consumer PCs - Using the HP Cloud Recovery Tool in Windows 11 and 10 | HP® Support

You can download the software from the Microsoft Store:

HP Cloud Recovery Tool - Free download and install on Windows | Microsoft Store

[Becka5]

Thank you for your reply.  Does sound complicated to me.  My bank suggested I get HP to do a full factory reset.  I was planning to save my Desktop files to a memory stick before doing this.  

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

Yes, I would definitely copy any files you need to save onto a portable hard drive or USB flash drive.

A factory reset erases everything, repartitions/reformats the drive and then installs Windows, etc.