Asking BIOS password to reinstall Windows 10

[Corinne49]

Greetings,

My teen did a factory reset of his computer but didn't create a bootable drive before (from what I can gather). The Boot device is not found and I am trying to install windows 10 but am asked for the BIOS password that I don't know. My son is the original owner and the computer came pre-configured so we never had to set a BIOS password.  How should go about it reinstalling the operating system? I am stuck...

Thank you very much in advance for all the help!

Best wishes,

Corinne

[WAWood]

@Corinne49 

I can certainly understand the desire to do factory resets -- given the prevalent view that such an action, though extreme, will fix a variety of mysterious problems and return a troublesome PC to working condition.

Problem is -- that very often is NOT the case and if there is any hardware issue at all, which is nearly always the cause with a SLOW PC (which is why most folks do the factory resets), you end up trashing your PC and rendering it useless. So, you trade a SLOW PC for a non-working PC. Not a good trade -- and certainly not what you intended.

The message you are getting indicates a likely drive failure, so let's check for the drive failing, if your PC is new enough to support UEFI, you can use these steps to test the drive: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00439024

If not, you have to follow these steps:
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
3) press the Function key for testing the hard drive (usually F2) and let it run.

If the test will not run or if it fails, that indicates that your drive has failed and would need to be replaced.

[Corinne49]

Thank you WAWood for your message. We did a test already for the hard drive (both short and long tests) and the hard drive is fine. The issue is not being able to reinstall windows 10, because we are prompted to enter a BIOS password that we don't have.