DISM /restorehealth error 0x800f081f

JohnJ said:

Back in the saddle again-Tried to do a clean install from a memory stick (brand new never been used) but unsuccessful. Did not matter which partition I chose kept getting same message-Windows cannot be installed on this drive. Think I must be missing some major step in the process?

I am afraid I don't know how to assist you any further.
Sorry.

I had this happen to me and it was caused by using a USB3 stick. Using a USB2 stick enabled the installation to proceed. What happens was that the installer looks at all off the disks in your system, including the USB stick where it's running from and if it can not find drivers for it it craps out. Silly but that's what it does. I hope the solves your problem.

Yes I am using a USB 3 stick bought specifically for this exercise,(supposed to be "backward compatible" with USB 2.

Any suggestions other than buying another stick USB 2 this time?

Hi John,
That's the only suggestion that I have. Unfortunately I can not guarantee that my suggestion will solve your problem but I think it is likely that it will. I their anyone that could loan you a USB2 stick that you could try?

SoFine409 said:

Hi John,
That's the only suggestion that I have. Unfortunately I can not guarantee that my suggestion will solve your problem but I think it is likely that it will. I their anyone that could loan you a USB2 stick that you could try?

After a long (9 Hour) phone contact with Microsoft Support in the Philippines and India where they took over my laptop remotely, the final judgement was that there are no Win 10 drivers from HP for my model of laptop. This has been confirmed by HP Support in Cape Town with the comment that HP were unlikely to release drivers for my particular model as the manufacturing date was 2012 regardless of when I purchased it. Best suggestion - go back to Win 8.1and don't update to Win 10. alternatively purchase a newer laptop with Win 10 pre-loaded?
Asked Windows support to remove all the additional users that had been created and just leave me with my original. Now when I try to roll back from Win 10 I get the message that I have to remove the additional user of me as Administrator.
If this is the only user i can see, what happens after I have removed it? Any ideas/suggestions would be much appreciated