Desktop Pavilion Factory Reset

[Gonzxor]

 I am trying to factory reset my old desktop. I do not have recovery discs.

I have tried using the recovery manager, wwhich doesnt seem to come up. What does come up is sp45602, sooo I installed that (says its recovery manager). Problem #1 I get an error saying "This application failed to start because WIMGAPI.DLL was not found." I tried sfc /scannow which did said there was missing files or corruped or something like that. Told me it fixed it, well it didnt exact same message.

Attempt #2. During boot up I tried repeatly pressing f11 for recovery. A black screen does come saying that f11 is binded to recovery and shortly after starts making a odd ticking noise from the computer everytime I press f11. However, it boots normally no matter what I try.

What can I do :(, I've tried my best to research but I am stumpt, thanks!

[WAWood]

@Gonzxor

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

Sorry, but I don't have very good news for you ...

Sounds like, from your description, that you are suffering from filesystem corruption -- which is not surprising if your hard drive is still the original one from the Vista days.  You're fortunate to have had it last this long.

You have to follow these steps to test the hard drive:
1) Press Esc key repeatedly, several times a second, while rebooting the laptop. Do NOT hold the key down, just press it over and over.
2) Eventually, you will see an HP Startup Menu -- that will look similar to the image below ...

3) press the Function key for testing the hard drive (usually F2) and let it run.

Please report back the test results.

[Gonzxor]

Hi thank you for your help. Just to clarify this iss a desktop not a laptop or notebook.

I can get to the boot menu by pressing escape but f2 is not doing anything. I will keep trying to figure it out, will post back If I find anything. Thanks.

[Gonzxor]

Okay, made some progrress. Basing my info off here.

 Looks like I have bios version 6 or less. I got the exact screen for pressing F9 for diagnosis. Did that, cpu passed, hard drive passed all 3 catergories. Ram failed! Error code: BIOME-1.

[WAWood]

@Gonzxor

Good to hear the hard drive test passed, but if you're getting RAM failures, that can result in filesystem corruption.

You have to fix that before doing anything else -- and that requires replacing the faulty memory stick(s).

[Gonzxor]

Okay, I isolated the ram stick, only 1 out of 4 was faulty. Ram passes now, aswell as everything else. What should I do next?

[WAWood]

@Gonzxor

If you're no longer getting memory errors using the good memory sticks but you're still getting errors using sfc, you would have to repair those errors -- and that is very, very hard to do with OEM PCs because you don't have Windows installation media for those (which is required), but only recovery media -- which will not work to repair those errors.

It looks like you will have to resort to using HP Recovery Media -- but the problem there is that HP has not stocked Vista recovery media in a long time, so there is no way to get it from HP.

Since HP no longer provides Recovery Media for your model, a couple of other sites you should check are: http://www.computersurgeons.com/ and http://www.restoredisks.com/

Before using the media, read through this: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00006110

Good Luck

[Gonzxor]

Seems like HP does not have great customer serivce. Theres not a pont in me paying $25 for the software. I might aswell salvage some parts and by another mb and cpu for $80. Definitaly not buying HP again! Thanks for your help.

I should also add I'm not building this computer for actually use. Its going to run certain programs for a server and does not need to be fast. Thats why I am using this PC.