I managed to screw things up pretty bad, and want to restore back to factory state, However I can no longer access my restore partition because Windows 10 has its restore software there when I hit F11. This is an HP Pavilion 17. Anyone know of any tools or a way to get my old restore partition back?
Alternatively you can download the OS that is specified on the COA sticker and activate it with the key from the COA sticker. Use the help of a USB stick.
The only real way to get the original restore stuff back is to do a factory reset of the PC using HP Recovery Media. That is a set of DVDs and a CD that will reformat the drive, reinstall the OS, the drivers, and the HP utilities.
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 "Update". 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 "+" symbol to expand that entty and click on Order Media for details.
Or, if you prefer, you can do the same by contacting HP Customer Service:
If you live in the US or Canada, contact information is on this page: http://www8.hp.com/us/en/contact-hp/....html#section1
If you live elsewhere, contact information is on this page: http://www8.hp.com/us/en/contact-hp/ww-contact-us.html
Note that if HP no longer provides Recovery Media for your model, a couple of other sites you can check are: http://www.computersurgeons.com/ and http://www.restoredisks.com/
Be sure to read through the material in the linked thread BEFORE you attempt the recovery: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00707939
Good Luck
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