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(The word "problem" isn't allowed in titles; otherwise, I would have put the error message in the title)
I bought a Windows 10 laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon) and created a recovery USB drive from within Windows using the built-in tool. The system passed all hardware tests too. I thought I could recover the system using the recovery USB only, so I wiped the hard drive1.
Thus, the hard drive is completely empty. I reformatted it with Gparted so it's just one large empty NTFS partition. When I boot from the recovery USB and select any of the recovery options, the recovery begins, but I eventually get an error of
There was a problem resetting your PC
On the Microsoft Answers site, I see one suggestion that says to select "Remove Everything" when using the recovery USB, but I tried that and I get the same error. I've tried every option on the recovery USB, including the option to wipe the whole hard drive first, only reset the PC (without wiping the drive), and whatever other options there are in the Troubleshoot my PC menu that I can't remember off the top of my head. They all fail with the same error.
Is there any way to recover/reinstall the Windows 10 factory image on this PC? There might be an error with the recovery USB, but unfortunately I can't make a new one for my system because Windows is gone from the machine.
1 Long story short, I tried to install a Linux distro, which failed, so I'm putting Windows back for the time being. Some of the issues with the Linux distro are detailed in this question on the Unix SE but I'm not sure that it's relevant here.
Michael A
Posted 2016-05-01T19:35:45.897
Reputation: 648
Windows must be installed in order to reset it. At this stage if you formatted the HDD just install Windows 10 again since that is exactly what this feature does. Just download the Windows 10 .ISO – Ramhound – 2016-05-01T21:47:12.923
@Ramhound Will it matter that the Windows 10 ISO doesn't have any drivers for my PC? I'm trying to reset my machine to the factory image (which I assumed is what the recovery USB contains) but is this not the case? – Michael A – 2016-05-02T14:07:48.920
If you are worried, add the drivers, you feel are required for the system to function to the install.wim image. – Ramhound – 2016-05-02T16:43:49.520
"There was a problem resetting your PC" no kidding, thanks Microsoft for no error codes to diagnose the issue. – Moab – 2016-05-03T00:02:46.853
I dont think the recovery drive was meant to recover to a blank hard drive, it was meant to repair-refresh a current installation. – Moab – 2016-05-03T00:07:54.357