Stuck at “Restoration Incomplete”.

[suylyath]

Problem with HP Laptop

So the other day I opened up my laptop and tried to boot up. Black screen. Awesome.
I try resetting it multiple times, to no avail. So I turned to the debug/troubleshoot menu and tried to open command prompt. Password locked behind a local password I don’t remember setting and that I have never had to input before. I tried my microsoft account password since it had my email showing, but it didn’t work. So I assumed I was **bleep** out of luck since I couldn’t choose any of the options as they were all password locked except for a full factory reset. Accepting the fate of my files, I tried that. Didn’t work. I tried using the command prompt in HP Recovery Manager but that didn’t work either. I then tried to factory reset through HP recovery which seemed to work as it actually made it to the desktop and started to download all the software, so me, thinking I’d finally be able to start working again, left the house for a bit to attend to a family matter. I come back to a message that says “Restoration Incomplete”. Every time I reset it brings me back to this screen and I am so frustrated with this that I can’t keep trying to fix it myself. What do?

[WAWood]

@suylyath 

Since your PC can not successfully do an internal factory reset, your only ways to accomplish this are the following:
- Factory reset using external HP image you make
- Factory reset using external HP image you buy

Each of these is discussed in some detail below ...

---------- Factory reset using external HP image you make ----------
HP provides a Cloud Recovery tool that you can use, together with a 32GB USB stick, to create your on HP reset media.

Here is the link: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205

This works the same as the factory reset described above.

---------- Factory reset using external HP image you buy ----------
For those PCs not supported by the Cloud Recovery, in some cases, HP offers Recover Media for sale. This can not be downloaded; instead, it must be ordered from HP.

HP Recovery Media is a set of DVDs and a CD, or USB stick, that will erase the hard drive (removing all data, settings, and applications, reinstall the original OS, drivers, and some HP Utilities.

In some cases, you may be able to order a USB stick instead of disks.

You can look online for Recovery Media starting with the linked paged: http://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers

Once there, input your Product name or number. On your Software and Drivers Download page, select your Operating System and and Version. Click &quot;Update&quot;.<br><br>If HP Recovery Media is available for your machine, down near the bottom of the page, you will see an entry for Order Recovery Media-CD/DVD/USB. Click the &quot;+&quot; symbol to expand that entry and click on Order Media for details.

Or, if you prefer, you can do the same by contacting HP Customer Support.

HP contact info: https://support.hp.com/us-en/contact-hp?openCLC=true

If HP no longer carries the media you need, another site you should check for HP Recovery Media is: http://www.computersurgeons.com/

These work the same as the factory reset described above.

[suylyath]

Thank you for your advice. I will mark your answer as the solution if it works. Would I be able to use an external usb hard drive to accomplish this?