HP 15-ba009dx Notebook Hard Drive locked

[Moylu248]

I bought a HP 15-ba009dx Notebook at a garage sale a few months ago. It worked fine and everything was good until last week. It was running slow so I thought it might have caught a virus. I attempted to factory reset going throught F11. Sometime during the process something went wrong. I left it for about half an hour and came back to find that the Recovery Manager stated, "Restoration Incomplete. The restoration did not complete. Please select one of the following buttons: Save Log, Details, Retry"  Also, there were three other seperate windows on the screen. One said, "FBI - Debug Mode -->1 (Not Responding)." On the bottom of the window it states "A really bad thing happened." Another window is C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe and has the following on the screen:

Please wait...

[ 7:35:09.32]

[ 7:35:09.32]

[ 7:35:11.68]

A third screen is the HP File Based Installer (Not Responding) screen which states:

Software installation

Software is being Installed

When complete, your system may automatically restart. Please do not  turn off your computer during this process

Two bars are empty below that. It stays frozen like that and will not change. After 5 (Yes, FIVE) hours I finally shut it down.

The next screen that pops up with the Windows 10 screen. It reads:

Sysprep is working

Process generalize phase Sysprep plugins...

After 2 minutes it attempts  "Restarting" before it begins the sequence again.

The Hp logo pops up and it says "Getting Ready" with the little balls going in a circle for about a minute. Then it shuts itself down and restarts the window saying Administarator Welcome. Then it goes back to the screen I described at the beginning.

I have done Hardware diagnostics and the drive is fine. Memory is fine. Somewhere in there I saw a screen stating the hard drive was locked, but there are no security passwords or a Drive lock on my laptop. I left the passwords blank on purpose. Can someone please help me and tell me what is going on?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

The only suggestion I can offer would be to try clean installing W10 by using the Media Creation Tool at the link below.

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

The W10 software will work with the W10 product key in the notebook's BIOS and automatically activate once you are connected to the internet.

After W10 installs, go to your notebook's support page to install the drivers and available software you need.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/HP-15-Notebook-PC-series/10862317/model/13386205

[Moylu248]

Thank you. It seems to have done the trick. However, it originally came with Microsoft Office. Is there anyway to get a link to download it again, and will the Bios still have the Product Key stored in the memory also? Everything else seems to be back on track. I really appreciate your advise. My computer works even faster now than before. Thanx.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Unfortunately, there isn't a way to recover Microsoft Office if it came with the PC.

The only product key stored in the BIOS is for Windows.

There are free Microsoft Office-type programs that will open and edit some Microsoft Office files.

Such as this one...

https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/

[Moylu248]

Thank you again for your super quick response. I wasn't expecting the help to be so immediate. I'm not upset that the Office isn't in the Bios. Thank you for your suggestion, however. I will try Libre Office. This has been a great relief as I thought I'd have to go buy the recovery kit from HP for almost $50, or worse, a whole new computer. I am really grateful to you and this forum. Next time I won't bang my head for 2 days before asking for help. Again, Thanx.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.