I cannot create Recovery Media that is to be used for an OS reset

Question

Hello,Recently I upgraded to Win 10, and decided to go back to 8.1 because I thought it was bogus - too slow, not so good looking. But in order to go back to Win 8.1, i needed to get rid of some things in order to free up space. Because there were no pictures, just program files and data, I started picking out Program Files folder to delete (I know, one of the stupidest things you could, but I was MAD). The folders that I deleted were folders from Steam, MS Office, and other folders that were added on by me, not my system. After I came back to Win 8.1, I was so happy to see my faster, better running OS. But not for long.  The problems came on the next day. I couldn't open my XBOX Music App, which I was certain was something I must've done with my quest for freeing up space. I tried looking for installation files and .exe files for the Music app, but they all came from unreliable sources.  So I uninstalled the Music app and attepmted to install it in the Store. I wasn't successful at that beacuse of an error that I believe was 0x80070057.  So I decided to just go ahead and give my system a reset.  Now here comes the real issue: When I try to reset, it says that I need a recovery media which i can acquire with installation media. But the problem is I DON'T have installation media. I went ahead and looked for a Windows 8.1 with Bing edition, and found the MS Media Creation tool. I started following a procedure with the appropriate info (such as Windows 8.1 Single Language edition, x64 architecture, and English Language) and it stayed there on 0%, with "Please Wait." And so I waited, waited, without any change. Now, I have REALLY high speed internet access, which is unlike the internet proivded in the States (eugh) and so it shouldn't be a problem on my side. I gave up on that, and decided to go ahead and create myself a recovery image using the HP Recovery Manager. I went ahead and clicked "Create recovery media for your system" and clicked Next on the little window that popped up. It started doing something, and shortly after that it came back with "We can't create a recovery drive on this PC. Some required files are missing. To troubleshoot problems when your PC can't start, use your Windows installation disc or media." Great, back to something I DON'T have.  So that is where I run out of solutions. I usually hate posting problems on forums (because I solve the problem myself), but this where I fail in my everlasting quest to be a lone wolf in the world of PC problems.  Some ideas I came up with were to go back to Win 10, and try to reset my sys there, but I'm afraid that if I do that, I won't be able to go back to Windows 8.1. I really need some help, because it truly is interupting my workflow.   Sincerely,QWEW

Answer 1

I had a Win10 upgrade fail on my HP laptop and, in the process, it corrupted the Recovery partition.  I think there's a warning somewhere in the upgrade instructions mentioning that the upgrade will prevent you from using any Recovery option already on your PC -- but that's not much help now. You're probably going to have to contact HP support to order a set of Recover Media.  That will be a DVD or a set of CDs, and when you use them, they will reformat your drive -- so do whatever you can to save off any data or valuable files before you use them.  And, you will (most likely) have to PAY for the media.  HP charges somewhere around $30 for the media, but your cost might vary.