HP recovery tool

[Bo3uf]

My windows got corrupted recently and can't boot. I've contacted Microsoft agents and told me to reinstall it. However, they told me to ask HP for help in getting the product key of windows 10 (since I've bought my laptop ready from HP) in case the windows license was formatted (because they want to reinstall it from a USB). Later, I noticed in the recovery environment (f 11) that there's an HP recovery tool which can help me back up and do a system recovery. I thought of trying it, yet I'm not sure if this will fix my window's corruption and not remove it's license, even though it says it will return my laptop as it was since I bought it. 

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Notebooks that came with W10 have the product key in the BIOS.

Unless somehow the BIOS got corrupted, the product key is not affected by reinstalling Windows or using the recovery system to factory reset the notebook.

Give the factory reset option a try.

You only need to know the W10 product key if your notebook came with FreeDOS and you installed W10 with a key that you already had.

If the factory reset option doesn't work, you can also make a bootable USB recovery drive with the HP cloud recovery tool using another Windows PC running Windows 7 64 bit or newer.

The media created by the cloud recovery tool will reinstall W10, the drivers and the software that originally came with your notebook.

Here is an info link for how to use the cloud recovery tool.

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

[Bo3uf]

Wow, I dunno how to thank you. Yet still I'm not done yet (I'll inform you every step). So, about the windows product key, my BIOS is fine it's just the windows (operating system) that's corrupted. That means my product key license won't be removed and even after doing a recovery to the factory image my windows 10 will still be genuine right? And since it says to the factory image, that also means that my laptop would return exactly how it looked the first time I turned on my laptop, right? 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

You are correct. If your PC is working fine but not Windows, the key in the BIOS is intact.

W10 will be genuine and yes, the tool will reset your notebook's hard drive to its 'out of the box' condition.

[Bo3uf]

I didn't know you're fast in replying too! I will post the error message from windows when booting in a new reply to confirm again that my windows is only corrupted (boot files and partitions are mess up and corrupted). Also, I want to fix this issue ASAP cause I need it for my studies. So if you don't mind helping me for 1 - 2 weeks please? I'll be so grateful if you do 😄! 

 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

I will do what I can do to help you.

[Bo3uf]

Thanks a lot! So, you've suggested me to use HP cloud recovery (booting a recover HP program from a USB), which is the same as the already built-in HP recovery trouble shoot my laptop has. Except, that the USB has the reset factory option. What is the difference between reset factory and system recovery formatting? Does the USB has any advantages? 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

The only advantage the USB drive has over the built in factory reset option is if the hard drive needed to be replaced, where the factory reset would not work, since the recovery partition would have failed along with the hard drive.

[Bo3uf]

So do I try system recovery or Factory reset option? Also, when I'm backing up files sometimes I receive an error saying "The destination drive is not connected". Leaving me with an uncompleted file backup. So you know how to fix it? It didn't happen when I backed up some files ranging from 500 MB - 7 GB from the desktop and other files from my secondary storage drive (drive D, not a windows drive).

Note: (If the image below doesn't show please tell me) 

 

[Bo3uf]

I did a hard drive test (quick and extensive test) on both C and D drives (windows and a storage drive). They have passed all the tests, which means they don't need to be replaced, right? I did the test by some instructions given by the virtual bot, it told me to go to components test > hard drive test. After that I went to the test logs and rechecked the result which was PASSED with no errors. The version of the HP testing was 6.5.0.0