HP Omen Gaming Notebook infinite HP Recovery factory image reset loop

[Sam_Vypre]

Hi, I'm facing a really annoying problem that has a little bit of a backstory to it, events and details that I think are worth mentioning as to how annoyed and disappointed I am with this laptop. But let's not give up and try to fix the current problem!

PC specs off the top of my head:

CPU: Intel i7-8750H

GPU: Geforce GTX 1060

RAM: DDR4 16 gigs, 26xx MHz

256GB SSD + 1TB HDD

Backstory and complaints that I've had with this laptop up until now:

I've bought this laptop early 2019, and within a month, the power brick gave up on me. I had a replacement for that, but the problems didn't end there. I have a headphone jack that doesn't properly secure my aux-jack, crackling in the left ear when using this jack that didn't go away after several reinstalls of windows, reinstalls of drivers and so forth. Since summer last year, I am certain I've experienced about 100(!) bsod's with about a dozen different stop-codes, and the most recent one (yesterday), that I think led to my computer not working anymore, is a KMODE-EXCEPTION-NOT-HANDLED upon boot of Windows 10, which I've never had before until that point in time.

I was playing Black Ops 3 when my computer froze, which I've only had happen in 2 other games, Battlefield V and Subnautica. Ctrl-alt-delete, alt+tab, nothing worked, so I began a force shutdown, then restarted the computer, and it gave me the KMODE-EXCEPTION-NOT-HANDLED bsod.

Since that moment, the computer boots, then turns off, then restarts again and goes into 'Preparing automatic repair'. I've tried everything in the menu that appeared, from start-up repair (no problems found/fixed) to booting up in  safe mode (which also didn't boot, just restarted the computer and went straight back to automatic repair), absolutely nothing worked or fixed the issue. I then tried to do a system restore from that same menu, first one that would let me keep my files, which stalled halfway, reverted changes because something went wrong. Then moved on to the one that would wipe everything off the hard drives, same error, stalled halfway, 'something went wrong'. I then went into HP recovery manager, backed up my files (I could still access all information on my hard drives at that time, so no broken SSD and HDD), and tried to do a factory image reset from the HP recovery manager. This one didn't work either, errored on 'Failed to assign drive letter to ESP...'. I then restarted my pc, and now when the PC boots, it goes into a blue screen with a cmd-prompt that starts with Wpeinit, then closes the cmd-prompt, and says that restoring wasn't completed. The only options I have are "Save log", "Log" and "Try again". Try again keeps bringing me back to the same screen, and the cross on the top right of the window does the same thing.

I can't do anything else, it is stuck in this loop of booting and hp recovery manager not completing on failing to assign a drive letter.

Here's the exact copied log HP recovery manager gives me:

[23:08:02.27][InactiveSP.cmd] ********************************

[23:08:02.27][InactiveSP.cmd]  [InactiveSP.cmd] has started...

[23:08:02.27][InactiveSP.cmd] ---------------------------------

[23:08:02.28][InactiveSP.cmd]  Inactive System Parition...

[23:08:02.28][InactiveSP.cmd] ---------------------------------

[23:08:02.28][InactiveSP.cmd]

[23:08:02.30][InactiveSP.cmd] Create ["C:\system.sav\InactiveSP.cmd.FAILURE.flg"]...

[23:08:02.30][InactiveSP.cmd]

[23:08:02.30][InactiveSP.cmd] Inactive ESP...

[23:08:02.30][InactiveSP.cmd]

[23:08:02.32][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] ********************************

[23:08:02.33][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd]  [C:\SYSTEM.SAV\ExitProc\DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] has started...

[23:08:02.33][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] --------------------------------

[23:08:02.33][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] Create ["C:\system.sav\DrvLtr2ESP.cmd.FAILURE.flg"] file...

[23:08:02.33][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd]

[23:08:02.35][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd]

[23:08:02.35][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] Detect ESP partition index...

[23:08:02.35][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd]

[23:08:02.42][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] ESP partition index = [3]

[23:08:02.42][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] ESP drive letter = [NONE]

[23:08:02.42][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd]

[23:08:02.42][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] Assign drive letter to ESP...

[23:08:02.42][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd]

[23:08:02.55][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] Failed to assign drive letter to ESP...

[23:08:02.56][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] ---------------------------------

[23:08:02.58][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] [DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] has completed...

[23:08:02.58][DrvLtr2ESP.cmd] *********************************

Is their anything I can do to fix this on my own, or do I HAVE to bring it in to a repair shop/return it? I'm currently writing this on my phone, and I need the laptop so I can continue with my study. I'd preferably fix this myself and finish my assignments first and bring it in for repairs later, rather than having to wait out a repair or a replacement.

Thanks in advance,

Sam

[banhien]

@Sam_Vypre 

Sounds like you did make some changes on your physical drive (256GB of SSD) and you are trying to Factory reset your machine. By the way, what are you trying to do ? You can do a CLEAN install Windows 10 and keep all your programs/data/files using the following installation tool

         https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

The tool will allow you to make a bootable installation media (USB/DVD) and you can use installation media to install.

During the installation process if you are asked to enter a product key, check the 'Skip' box and W10 will install and then automatically activate once you are connected to the internet using the key embedded in BIOS of your machine.

Note: Please REMEMBER to "tick" option to keep all programs and users files.

Then you can install the drivers and available software you need from your PC's support page. Normally few Windows 10 updates can install nearly all drivers for you.

Regards.

[Sam_Vypre]

@Banhien

First off, thanks for taking the time to reply.

What kind of changes do you mean when you say I made some changes on my physical drive? As I stated, my game froze, I had to force shutdown my pc, then booted directly into a bsod, after which the error appeared. Does that mean my pc made those changes to my physical drive?

The reset I mean is from HP Recovery Manager accessible from the repair environment, not the in-built system reset in windows 10, since the latter kept erroring halfway into the reset process. I also found out that pressing f11 brought up error 0xc0000098 'the Boot Configuration Data file doesn't contain a valid entry for an operating system'. Could this be related?

I will try to install a fresh Windows copy from a usb-drive tomorrow, I'll keep you updated as to how that goes.

Kind regards,

Sam