Cloud Recovery fails with 0xC00405 - hash failure

[RaleighRon]

I am trying to get factory image restore from the cloud. I downloaded and installed the HP Cloud Recovery Tool app. I followed all the steps properly. I am downloading the restore image for W2M98UA#ABA. This is a valid product. Download is successful. Extraction is successful. Hash check fails with 0xC00405. There appears to be a bug in the image if the hash is failing. There is nothing I can do. I need HP to fix the image/hash.

[Nirvana_95]

Hi @RaleighRon

Welcome to the HP Support Community. Thanks for bringing this to our notice.

I see that you are facing cloud recovery-related issues on your system. Do not worry, we are here to fix it.

May I know from when are you facing this issue?

Did you make any hardware or software-related changes to it? 

Are you able to boot into windows?

Could you tell me how did you create the USB media? Which link did you use?

Keep me posted. 

Thanks!

[RaleighRon]

I have a vanilla MSoft Win 10 install I used that to install the HP Recovery App. I ran the Recovery App. All was fine until the very end. The ISO download worked. Populating the USB flash drive worked but the drive is not bootable. After populating the USB drive, but before completion, the App said it was calculating the checksum. This failed and the App aborted. This is probably why the drive was never made bootable. Nothing I did on my end is at fault. There ia bug in the downloaded ISO file vs the embedded checksum value. HP needs to recalculate the checksum and update the download image. An HP person should be able to do this based on all the information provided  in my  original post.

[Nirvana_95]

Thanks for your response.

I would suggest you please use the link below and use it to proceed further: https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c04641788 b

Hope this helps! Keep me posted. 

Please click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution. 

Click the “Yes" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping. 

[RaleighRon]

I don't have that partition. I had to replace the hard drive as well. The only restore image is from the HP cloud. Please read my posts and understand what I have said. What I have done regarding the cloud image should work, per HP documentation. The HP cloud image and/or the HP install tool is defective. HP needs to step up and fix  the issue I have documented. I have no other alternatives. I have tried them all. Please don't waste my time ducking the fundamental issue I have identified.

[Nirvana_95]

Thanks for your response.

I have sent you a private message with further instructions to get this issue sorted in order to access your private messages, click the private message icon on the upper right corner of your HP community profile, next to your profile Name or simply click on this link.

Thanks!

[RaleighRon]

I read the private message. The message says the tool is fine and for me to replace the hard drive. Both of these miss the point. I never said the tool was at fault. I believe I said  the image is at fault. The hard drive cannot be the problem because that would assume that I am actually trying to install the factory restore image. I never get to that point. The HP Recovery Tool fails creating the USB drive image. I never get an image/USB drive to boot/restore.

My machine is out of warranty. However, that should not be relevant. HP claims/advertises/promises that I can download a factory restore image from the cloud. My machine serial is recognized on the HP web site as genuine and provides me the model. I enter that model into the HP Recovery tool and it recognizes it and says it is a valid model. Then it proceeds to download the image. The tool says I need a 32GB USB drive and 20GB free on my hard drive. The downloaded is an ISO and is between 7-8GB. It is as if this image is  too small. After downloading (successfully I might add), the tool extracts the ISO contents to the USB drive. There is a folder on the USB drive called PRELOAD. The PRELOAD folder contains .swm files. These are the factory image restore files. However, these are incorrect. Normally swm files start with a root name (mine is BASE.SWM) then there is a sequence of similarly names files, e.g., BASE2,SWM, BASE3.SWM, BASE4.SWM, etc. This sequence is incorrect. I have BASE2.SWM, then 3 and 4 are missing. The next files are BASE5.SWM-BASE8. SWM. 9 is missing. 10 is there. 11-12 are missing. 13 is there, 14 is missing, 15-18 are there. 18 is the last. If there are supposed to be more, I can't tell. So this is why I am convinced the image is corrupt - there is no way a restore tool can restore .swm files if there are missing files in the sequence. Of course, if the hash value is based on having all files present, and files are missing, the hash is going to fail.

So I am asking someone in HP technical support to actually go through the process I did - Run the HP Recovery tool, point to the model image (W2M98UA#ABA), and try to create the USB drive. Doing this should demonstrate the problem I am experiencing.

[serkan5000]

Did you ever get this working? I'm running into the same issue with a different product ID.

[RaleighRon]

No, I never got resolution from HP on this product. However, I tried the tool again just two days ago for a different product (1KS76UA#ABA) and it downloaded and created the USB drive successfully. So it appears that this is a problem with the images and HP seems not at all interested in fixing the images.

So what did I do with my original image? I downloaded a vanilla Windows 10 image/iso from Microsoft and just did a clean install of it. I was worried about licensing and device drivers. For licensing, Microsoft said that my computer has an electronic license. Once it saw this, Microsoft automatically activated the new Windows 10 install.

For Windows 10, I originally used an initial Windows 10 release. When I did this, the Windows 10 install found and supplied drivers for all my devices. Very nice. But then Windows 10 Update started doing updates - big updates. So I decided to try installing a later Windows 10 image (21H2). This also installed fine but it left several of my drivers unknown. I had to go to Windows 10 Update and install optional devices. This got my system fully configured.

Based on my experience with the HP cloud recovery, the HP image may not be needed, unless you want all the HP bloatware. If you can't get the HP cloud to work, just do a clean Windows install.