Cannot recover laptop -

[opllop]

Hey all,

I own a HP ZBook Firefly G10 (42B36PA#ABG) and for a university assignment for a short time I needed Linux installed. Prior to doing so I dutifully created a windows recovery USB in the windows environment before installing Linux.

Now it’s time to load windows back, the USB is repeatedly failing at 11% in, with no valuable error message “ there was a problem recovering your PC”.

Another post here suggested downloading vanilla windows 10 and going from there. I did this, booted from the usb but after clicking “install now” in the windows 10 installer it demands specific usb drivers from a manufacturer dvd that I obviously have never had. “A driver your computer needs is missing.”

Another post suggested on another windows machine I download the HP Cloud Recovery tool, punch in my model ID and create a new one there, however the app says repeatedly that my model id ( 42B36PA#ABG ) is invalid.

Finally I contacted HP support who said they don’t support my laptop anymore and refuse to engage further.

I’m out of ideas. Can anyone help?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

You have a couple of options:

1. You are using the wrong version of the cloud recovery program.

You need to use the HP cloud recovery client software for business PC's which requires you to enter the PC's serial number, not the product number in the program.

Here's the link to the software download:

HP ZBook Firefly 14 inch G10 Mobile Workstation PC Software and Driver Details

Here's a link for how to use the software:

HP Business PCs - Using the HP Cloud Recovery Client in Windows 11 and Windows 10 | HP® Support

Option 2:  Make a bootable USB installation flash drive with the MIcrosoft media creation tool:

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

When you get to the part of the installation where Windows can't find a drive to install on, you have to load the Intel storage controller drivers that I zipped up and attached below for Windows to find the drive.

The attached file is good for both W10 & W11.

Copy all of the files in both folders in the attached file to a USB flash drive.

Have the flash drive and your Windows installation media plugged into USB ports.

Boot from the W10/W11 installation flash drive.

When you get to the screen where no drives can be found, click on the Load driver option, browse to the flash drive with the storage controller drivers on it.

If you check the box, it will only include the compatible driver.

Click Next and Windows should find the drive and install.