BootDevice Not Found

[Heyitstj4]

I had some illegitimate copy of windows 10 with some Edge/Google Chrome knockoff browser stealing my personal confidential information. So I tried to restore windows 10 from within windows. When it rebooted I came to this error. I can not boot from USB, it goes directly past some brief recognition of the USB drive booting, then comes to the BootDevice Not Found Hard Disk 3F0 error screen. I have ran all of the smart tests and they pass, I believe my hardware has been stolen and replaced with illegit replicas.

[WAWood]

@Heyitstj4 

I understand your confusion, but that belief is utter nonsense!  No one can steal the hardware and replace it.

If you had an illegal copy of Windows, then anything is possible in terms of PC corruption after that and we can not and will not support PCs with such issues.  If you want our help, you need to consider doing a factory reset using external media.

But before you attempt that, understand that this error message is often due to a failing drive. So, let's check that first, because if it is failing, it would need to be replaced and there is no point then in doing anything else until we confirm that.

If your PC is new enough to support UEFI, you can use these steps to test the hard drive: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00439024

If not, to check the drive 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 drive checks out OK, then report that and I can provide you options for reinstalling Windows on your PC.