A factory restore is good as a Clean install, so a Win 10 clean install may not fix the problem.
Tell us, in details , what is the problem with your Lenovo.
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Well after I did the factory restor with Lenovo Onekey Recovery, the small D: partition still had some personal files I had put in there that were not wiped. Everything from the main C: drive and windows was wiped but that's what made me think it might not be the equivalent of a clean install. idk.
But to answer your question- Laptop powers on, shows lenovo logo, then black screen. I can access BIOS. Just does not hand over to windows, or boot to windows. idk.
(specs added)
The boot manager is probably corrupted. You can rebuild it, no need to reinstall everything.
Is your computer set as Legacy-MBR or UEFI - GPT?
Do you have a boot able Win 10 USB installation drive?
-But shouldn't a factory reset have wiped and rebuilt the boot manager already?
-It is UEFI boot mode. If I switch over to Legacy and try to boot, screen says no bootable device.
-Also, I brought up CMD and did all of those boot rec, scan disk, rebuild mbr or whatever, commands to reset and rebuild it it didn't work for me.
-I do not have windows 10 bootable usb yet cuz I do not have access to Windows to create a USB that would save my key. So I was going to do windows 8.1 clean install first from a usb, then upgrade to windows 10.
- and I also already tried the startup repair in Windows recovery menu
Last edited by jerry76; 15 Jun 2023 at 18:02.
There are many partitions on a Win 8 OEM drive.
The BIOS can take the boot sequence to the Lenovo Tools (with factory repair and other tools) or to a EFI Fat32 partition to boot Windows.
The Factory Recover will format the C: partition and place an image that is stored on the Factory Recover partition. The EFI Fat32 partition to boot Windows is probably not recreated.
Do you have a Win 8 USB installation drive so you can boot and run some cmd?
Consider performing a Windows 8.1 custom install.
(A custom install is for a Windows OS that fails to boot)
During a custom install a fresh version of Windows is installed and files are saved to Windows.old.
Then Windows 8.1 can be upgraded to Windows 10 or clean installed using gatherosstate.exe.
Important files from Windows.old can be reinstalled once you've got a working upgrade.
The advantage of clean install over upgrade is to modify BIOS settings if needed.
Starting with Windows 8 all PC's supplied with Windows pre-installed by the OEM have their Windows key embedded in the bios firmware. During a clean install of Windows 10 Setup will read this key from the firmware, use it to determine which edition to install (Home or Pro) and to activate Windows. There is no need for you to find and save this key yourself.
These are links on Custom Install:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...20Windows%2010.
Custom Install Windows 10
How to Restore Files from Windows.old Folder in Windows 10
One or more of these links may be useful for Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 iso:
Download Windows 10 ISO File
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...ad/windows8ISO
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10
Thanks that tutorial is helpful. However the ability to delete the existing partitions and create a new one, based on Brinks tutorial, is only available for legacy mode, if you have a UEFI chip bios like me, it is not. Both tutorials for clean install versus custom install ultimately lead to the same setup window and according to Brinks tutorial I will not get that option since I have a UEFI chip
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