HP Envy x360 m convertible model 15m-ed0023dx Windows upgrade wiped HD

[collapse157]

Well this is a new one for me. HP laptop I believe tried to upgrade to Win11 but now the disk has nothing on it. I have tried all of the normal repair utilities including ALL OF THE HP BUILT IN ONES and none of them have worked. I have fixed multiple corrupt Windows installs and never had one brick like this. I have tried Win10 and Win11 boot media to try and repair and nothing, the hard drive is showing 22 files on it even after putting in the bitlocker password to access it. DISM is saying "DISM does not support servicing a Windows Vista RTM or earlier operating system" on both Win10 and Win11 boot media. HP is currently offering no support on this machine. I am still hopeful but it seems like it just wiped the drive and immediately failed on the update/upgrade. The user states it was Win10 but now it is loading a Win11 bootloader so I suspect a Win11 happened. Looking for any hope of getting the data back.

[WAWood]

OK so first, let's get our terms straight.

A factory reset does not WIPE the drive; instead, it REFORMATS the drive.

For what you are doing, this is essentially the same -- but reformatting does not actually remove files from the drive, it only hides them from Windows.  So when you look at the drive in Windows, you won't see anything there -- even though the files are stil present.

Also, if there is any hardware issue with the drive, which is why most folks do resets, the reset is guaranteed to fail because it won't be able to properly reformat the drive and reinstall Windows -- which sounds like what happened to you.

If your PC is a 2016 model or newer, you should see if you can make a bootable USB recovery drive using the HP cloud recovery tool on a working PC.

The recovery drive can then be used to install Windows and the HP drivers and utilities that originally came with your PC.

You will need a working PC and a 32GB USB stick to hold the recovery files. Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmtXOU40vxk

You use the Microsoft Store to download the actual tool:

https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9mtks9pr7r3n?rtc=1&hl=en-us&gl=us

If you use a different PC to run the tool, you will have to provide your PC's product number. Here is an HP link for finding that information:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_2039298-1862169-16

Here's a video from HP Support about using the Cloud Recovery Tool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7AwuKNJKS4

[collapse157]

Thank you for the help, I do have a Windows 10 or 11 bootable USB I have been using to troubleshoot. Are you saying I can install and the files will still be there? Is there anyways to confirm this before I click install? I cannot see anything in CMD even after using the bitlocker password. The reformat does make sense, how does one view them without finishing an installation?

[WAWood]

Sorry, no -- I was not clear enough.

Reformat does not erase the files, so if you do a Factory Reset and then sell or give the laptop to someone else, your sensitive data is still all there on the drive, just not seen by Windows.  Anyone with $50 to spend on a data recovery app and retrieve nearly all that data.

But if you are doing this to restall Windows on your own drive, then WIPING is not necessary.

The reinstall will not reuse the existing files; instead, it will create a new filesystem and write all the files it needs to the drive.  Since the files are hidden from Windows, they will get overwritten.