System restore stuck at 82%

[Monteg0]

I performed a system restore on my HP laptop to clear things out, since it started to lag a lot. I decided to completely wipe out its files and start anew. The restore process has been stuck at 82% since yesterday. The circles are spinning, but nothing else is happening. What can I do? Is it safe to turn the laptop off and see what happens?

[WAWood]

@Monteg0 

I can certainly understand the desire to do factory resets -- given the prevalent view that such an action, though extreme, will fix a variety of mysterious problems and return a troublesome PC to working condition.

Problem is -- that very often is NOT the case and if there is any hardware issue at all, which is nearly always the cause with a SLOW PC (which is why most folks do the factory resets), you end up trashing your PC and rendering it useless. So, you trade a SLOW PC for a non-working PC. Not a good trade -- and certainly not what you intended.

So if your PC was running real SLOW, or apps are not launching, then let's check for the drive failing, if your PC is new enough to support UEFI, you can use these steps to test the drive: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00439024

If not, you have to follow these steps:
1) Press Esc key repeatedly, several times a second, while rebooting the laptop. Do NOT hold the key down, just press it over and over.
2) Eventually, you will see an HP Startup Menu
3) press the Function key for testing the hard drive (usually F2) and let it run.

If the test will not run or if it fails, that indicates that your drive has failed and would need to be replaced.