Factory reset fails while "Getting things ready"

[TonyQ007]

I am using the Cloud Recovery Tool to reset a friends laptop prior to disposing of it.  I have (eventually) managed to get the necessary stuff onto a USB memory stick, having failed to carry out the reset from the hard drive.  I have successfully started the laptop using F11 and I select the option to reset it wiping all the files on the disk.

The process starts, but a short time into the "Getting things ready" phase it simply puts up a message saying "There was a problem while resetting your PC" ... and stops.

I have run all the tests available within the UEFI as a "Quick test" - the 1 hour version - and everything passes.

Is there anything I can do about this, please?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

I recommend that you boot directly from the USB flash drive you created with the HP cloud recovery tool.

You can do that by pressing the ESC key and then selecting the F9 boot options menu.

The cloud recovery tool will erase the hard drive's current contents, partition and reformat the drive, and reinstall the factory image.

[TonyQ007]

Many thanks for that reply'  I have now managed to get it all reset.

My final step was discovering how to tell it to use the USB stick that I had built - I had previously been simply doing a reset, expecting it to use the USB stick, whereas it was (now obviously) still using the damaged hard disk version.  I hadn't realised that I needed to select "Use USB or DVD" or whatever it was, instead of the "Reset ..." option.

Thank you, Paul.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.