15-bw0xx - HP's own Recovery Media seems to have broken my laptop

[Robulon]

I have had this laptop for a couple of years and it has always been very slow, with very high disk usage on Task Manager, even when it wasn't being used. I tried a number of solutions that I found suggested on this site and none of them worked. I finally decided to reinstall windows using the HP Recovery Media, as suggested in this post https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Software-and-How-To-Questions/new-laptop-15-bw0xx-is-slow-ben...

I created the USB Recovery Media and tried to reinstall Windows (Started up laptop, pressed Esc, F11 and selected the USB device). I selected to erase all data on the hard drive and reinstall Windows. It went through the three stages (I forget exactly what they are but prepare hard drive, erase data etc) in about 20 minutes, then brought up the 'Updating Software' screen. This screen stayed on for a number of hours with the two bars slowly filling up. Eventually, the laptop started up again, going into the normal Log In screen with the word 'Administrator' then brought up a window titled 'C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe' which contained the text 'The system cannot find the drive specified' six times. Then another window opened titled 'hp Recovery Manager' with the message 'Restoration Incomplete. The restoration did not complete. Please select one of the following buttons:' with the options of 'Save Log' 'Details' or 'Retry'. I have tried 'Retry' on three separate occasions using a different USB port each time but the same thing always happened. I have tried 'Save Log' and inserted a USB drive but wouldn't know what to do with the .7z file that has been created.

As far as I can work out, I have gone from having a laptop that was painfully slow but was at least functional, to now having a machine that I cannot use at all. Is there any action I can take to remedy this? I find it hugely frustrating that I have used hp's own tool to try to fix an hp laptop and it seems to be this very tool that has rendered my laptop unusable.

If anyone can suggest a way to fix this issue, I would be extremely grateful.

Thanks

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

I can't help you fix the problem with the recovery media.  It is similar to a light bulb.  It either works or it doesn't.

But here are two alternatives so you can at least get your notebook to work again...

Make a a bootable USB recovery drive using the HP cloud recovery tool.

Here is an info link for how to use that utility.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205

Your other option would be to clean install W10 by creating bootable installation media using the media creation tool at the link below.

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

After W10 has completed installing, you can install the drivers and available software from your notebook's support page.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-15-bw000-laptop-pc/15551418

[Robulon]

Hi Paul, 

Thank you for taking the time to try to help. I am in the UK so it's a bit late to start trying another reinstallation but I will give it a go tomorrow and let you know how I get on. 

Thanks again, 

Rob

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, Rob.

If there are no underlying hardware issues, one of those two methods should work--especially the clean install.

[Robulon]

Hi Paul,

I've tried the clean install and can't get it to work. I've downloaded the bootable installation media onto a USB stick, started up the laptop and pressed Escape to get into the Startup Menu, then pressed F9 (Boot Device Options) and selected my USB Hard Drive. The first time I tried this, the screen went really fuzzy and I could just about make out the hp logo in the middle but nothing else happened. When I tried a second time, it brought up a screen saying Automatic Repair and 'Your PC did not start correctly' and gave me the option to Restart or Advanced Options. When I clicked into advanced options, i could either choose Continue, Use a device, Troubleshoot or Turn off your PC. I chose Use a device, then the next screen gave me 'Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk', 'EFI USB Device' or 'EFI DVD/CDROM'. I clicked USB and it brought up the black screen with the hp logo in the background and the circling dots beneath it. After a couple of minutes doing this, it returned to the loading screen saying 'Administrator' and then went back to the Restoration Incomplete screen.

I've downloaded the Cloud Recovery Tool so am currently preparing the USB Flash Drive. Please forgive my ignorance but how is this different to the recovery media that I created previously (not the Windows install, the HP one)?

Many thanks,

Rob

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Rob:

Sorry that nothing is working for you.

Could be a hardware issue.  Did you run the hardware tests in the BIOS to make sure the hard drive and memory are OK?

If so, another thing you can try is to go into the BIOS, enable legacy mode, disable secure boot, and see if you can boot from the legacy USB device instead when selecting the F9 boot options menu.

The cloud recovery tool is basically the same as what you created when you purchased the notebook, but it is created in a different way.

Sometimes the cloud recovery tool works when the media made from the recovery partition doesn't.

[Robulon]

Hi Paul,

The Cloud Recovery Tool worked! Thank you so much for your help, I wouldn't have had a clue without your assistance so I'm truly grateful.

I am still going to try to do a clean install of Windows now that the laptop is working again as I'd like to get rid of some of the programs that are pre loaded but I'll work out how to do that.

Thanks again,

Rob 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime, Rob.

Glad to have been of assistance.

Paul