Think i bought a turkey

[mick444]

Hello , a few days ago i bought a used HP desktop. Everything seemed fine. it took 30 seconds to boot and i was pleased. I believe it  had been upgraded as i saw an old windows folder. i wasn't keen on wiping it, as i didn't know whether it would revert to windows 7. 

Yesterday something happened, I noticed something about an update on the screen. I wasn't using the pc so i ignored it. Whatever it was doing was'nt going correctly. Some message appeared about  it taking longer and not to turn the pc off. Eventuallythe pc rebooted, i got to the desktop which was constantly flashing , I could do nothing but hard power off. I managed to boot into some recovery option and chose to wipe the pc.

Windows 10 reinstalled, but when i rebooted i got a black screen for about a minute and a half before the desktop appeared, then it would load very slowly. so it was taking about two minutes to boot and then sometimes freezing. i think the person who sold me this machine new there was a fault.

I decided to reinstall one more time, which i did, this time i cannot get any further thanthe screen where you choose your country/keyboard etc, when i click next , it says " theres a problem thats preventing us from getting your pc ready, an update will solve this, please connect to the internet or similar. This then goes into a loop

I am totally gutted and not sure where to go from here.

Can anyone advise, thanks in advance

https://ibb.co/hbKwFF

https://ibb.co/nkiZ2v

[WAWood]

@mick444

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

One problem with correcting the issues with your PC is that model came in two versions, one with Win7 preinstalled and one with Win10.

If yours came with Win7 and the original owner did the Win10 Upgrade, it could be failing now because more and more of the Win7 PCs are failing after being upgrade to Win10 Creators Update.  And if that is the case, the only "solution" (if you call it that) is restoring the PC to original factory settings in Win7 using HP Recovery Media.

Since you don't know which version of Win10 was running, your best bet at this point is to use this link to create current Win10 installation media and see if that works:  http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/media-creation-tool-install?ocid=ms_wol_win10

If that installs, then you can use this HP product page link to obtain HP Win10 drivers:  https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-pavilion-550-100-desktop-pc-series/8499648/model...

Good Luck

[mick444]

Many thaks for the reply, if my only solution is to get hold of the windows 7 recovery media, why would i download windows 10 ISO ?. I am a little upset at the fact that someone has possibly sold me a ' broken ' machine.

I realise you are much more experienced than me, so please forgive my ignorance. 

So you definitely think this is a windows problem and not a hardware one. 

Because the machine had a windows old file on, does this not mean is was definitely upgraded  ? 

If i download a windows 10 iso which one do i choose and will it work.

Sorry for my frustration i appreciate your help

[WAWood]

@mick444

The presence of a Windows.old folder is a pretty good indication that this PC was Upgraded to Win10 at some point.

The problems COULD be hardware because not all the Win7 PCs survive the Upgrade well, which is why I suggested downloading and installing HP Win10 drivers -- to see if those address the problems.

I suggested reinstalling Win10 if your PC is not working and you want to retain Win10 on it.

The problem there is that a specific version of Win10 was "Activated" on that PC when it was Upgraded -- the version being either Home or Pro -- and that same version would need to be used to reinstall Win10.  The ISO you download from Microsoft contains both Home and Pro versions.

The suggestion of returning to Win7 is if you don't want to restore Win10 on that PC.

[mick444 · Accepted solution]

Dear WAWood, many thanks for your help and advice. I have successfully downloaded and installed widows 10. I thank you very much.

My one big question now is, will it crash again ? I realise you cannot answer this question. In your opinion do you think the creators upgrade caused this crash, if so , it might happen again. I have looked and I am running Windows 10, version 1703. Does this mean the creators update is already installed windows 10 version 1703 

I really would like to thank you once again for all your help