Windows 8 Recovery Loop

[ShaneG3]

My brother gave me his laptop telling me he couldn't get it to start. I asked what he did and he said he doesn't know(he's mentally disabled and doesn't always know what he's doing). So I took it home, booted it up and it turns out he's stuck in a recovery loop. At first, it was stuck in an HP Recovery Loop, asking me over and over if I wanted to do a factory reset, image reset, etc. No matter what option(s) I chose, it would go through the chosen process, reboot, and go right back to asking me what I wanted to do to recover. I managed to get it past this but now it's in an HP Software Installation loop. It will continually "install software" and reboot, over and over and over. I booted Ubuntu from a USB and tested the hard drive, test results came back fine. F2 menu tested memory, came back fine. It's currently testing the hard drive from F2. Has anyone run into this problem/know how to fix it?

He bought the computer with Windows 8 installed and the only recovery disc he has in USB from geeksquad.

[visruth]

Hi,


Do let me know the results of extensive hard drive tests.

If everything passed,
Do a hard reset: https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c01684768

Plug in laptop and tap away f11 key as soon as you power on laptop, try factory reset now.

If this is giving you same issue, try factory reset by booting in from HP Recovery discs
http://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c03489643

BTW, have you backed up all the data from hard drive, if not - please do that FIRST, by booting from LiveCD​ and copy the files to external drive:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD


Regards

Visruth

[ShaneG3]

It's got another two hours on checking the hard drive, but I will let you know the results. I did back everything up to an external drive and I've tried doing a factory reset from F11. That got me into the HP Software Installation Loop. I do not have a Live CD or a Recovery Disc(my brother was not given one) and when I try to order one from the site, it won't let me enter the serial number(cursor doesn't show up, but I can type in all my info).

[visruth]

Sure, I'll keep an eye over this thread for the results.

Great that you backed up everything.

LiveCD is for backing up data to external drive if you've not done yet.

Geeksquad have provided your brother with HP Recovery USB, am I correct?

[ShaneG3]

I'm not sure if the USB given to him by geeksquad is an HP recovery or not. It just says "GeekSquad Recovery Program" on it and contains a WindowsRE file.

Edit: When I used the USB, it stayed stuck in the recovery loop. It wasn't until I removed the USB and tried without it that I got the computer to progress past that point. I was hoping to get something direct from HP that might help more.

[visruth]

Hi,


I'm not sure if HP stocks recovery media for your specific model at this point.

You've to directly contact HP technical support to know that.

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/contact-hp/ww-phone-assist.html

This is just a peer-to-peer​ public forum.

You can definitely do a clean install of Windows 8.1 using installation USB created by Microsoft windows media creation tool: https://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/18309-windows-8-windows-8-1-iso-download-create.html

https://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/15458-uefi-bootable-usb-flash-drive-create-windows.html

Install: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2328-uefi-unified-extensible-firmware-interface-install-windows...

Windows will be automatically activated after installation while connected to internet


Regards

Visruth