Reseting Windows back to Win8.1 not working

[Manas_4a]

I have been using Win10 since it's launch last year, but when the anniversary update rolled out, my dell laptop was not able to upgrade it properly and thus the windows got corrupted. After the dell logo there is just a blank screen and nothing else. This happened a couple of weeks ago. At that time I just reset my laptop back to factory default (Win8.1). Now fast forward a couple days ago, I tried to upgrade back to Win 10 and again it got stuck at about 23% during installation. The laptop restarted and again after the dell logo there was nothing but a black screen. Now that I am trying to reset it I'm getting the message that this PC cannot be reset. I tried using the restore media that I created when I initially purchased the laptop, but there is no option to restore it through DVD or a flash drive. The only option it is giving me is through OnBoard NIC (IPv4/IPv6). How can I reset it back to windows 8.1 or even remove the existing OS completely?

[You_are_a_cunt]

You're half a year too late.

The back-up for Windows 8.1 gets deleted after some time and the rollback was only available for a year from launch

[slightlyjaded]

grab another computer. Download a windows 8.1 boot disk and install it to a flash drive (I tend to use rufus to do this)

 

Most computers are setup to boot from a flash disk if a boot program is present. If not you might have to go into your bios settings to enable this.

 

You could probably do this with a windows 10 install, but I've never done it, so I'm unable to confirm.

[m0k]

I used to create a system image everytime i upgraded 
i have a system image backup win7 from my laptop

then i created a system image backup of win10 from my laptop

 

After upgrading win7 to win10, I had the option to rollback to win7 (without any backup) for the first 30 days, then it would delete the win7 files

 

if you want to completely format the HDD i would say pull the HDD out and put it into an enclosure into another system to wipe it/ format it.

 

You could also try using Ubuntu off a flash drive to see if it allows you to format your HDD from within ubuntu

[m0k]

8 minutes ago, revsilverspine said:

You're half a year too late.

The back-up for Windows 8.1 gets deleted after some time and the rollback was only available for a year from launch

rollback was only available for 30 days after upgrading no?

[m0k]

NOTE: Win10 installations took MULTIPLE atttempts for me on my older laptop, always gets stuck at 22%, eventually i let it sit overnight and the install was complete 

 

Its very hit or miss

 

I would strongly suggest creating system image onto another external HDD before upgrading OS in the future

 

Its been more than a year now and i can still use my System Image Backups to revert back to win7 if i wanted to (just in case something goes bad)

 

Can i ask what dell laptop youre using?
I was planning on upgrading from win7 pro to win10 pro on my other laptop, a latitude E6430

[You_are_a_cunt]

Just now, mok said:

rollback was only available for 30 days after upgrading no?

Probably. I wouldn't be able to provide that info since I deleted the back-up within a day of upgrading

[m0k]

3 minutes ago, revsilverspine said:

Probably. I wouldn't be able to provide that info since I deleted the back-up within a day of upgrading

Yea i can confirm, 

I upgraded to win7, had a lot of driver issues, reverted back to win7 within a week (at the time it even said i had 30 days to revert back)

created a system image backup on my win7 config

 

then two months later i still had the upgrade available so i tried again (after multiple attempts), upgraded to win7 and most of my old driver issues were resolved

[You_are_a_cunt]

1 minute ago, mok said:

Yea i can confirm, 

I upgraded to win7, had a lot of driver issues, reverted back to win7 within a week (at the time it even said i had 30 days to revert back)

created a system image backup on my win7 config

 

then two months later i still had the upgrade available so i tried again (after multiple attempts), upgraded to win7 and most of my old driver issues were resolved

Eh, when in doubt, install older drivers. That usually works for me (except when installing printers. DAMMIT CANON!)

[m0k]

3 minutes ago, revsilverspine said:

Eh, when in doubt, install older drivers. That usually works for me (except when installing printers. DAMMIT CANON!)

yeah i was so frustrated but i got super lucky. of all the shitty brands in the world Gateway's old site was actually still up and running and i was able to download all the original drivers that came with my model of laptops

also often win10 upgrades are such a broken process, i had to do a clean install of win10 from the control panel before any drivers worked properly

[You_are_a_cunt]

5 minutes ago, mok said:

yeah i was so frustrated but i got super lucky. of all the shitty brands in the world Gateway's old site was actually still up and running and i was able to download all the original drivers that came with my model of laptops

also often win10 upgrades are such a broken process, i had to do a clean install of win10 from the control panel before any drivers worked properly

I don't know, all my upgrades went fine. Some were slower than others, but no major issues past incompatibility of some apps and whatnot. Did a few fresh installs on those machines this year, but that was either because I was too lazy to clean up the OS or I upgraded hardware

[Manas_4a]

14 hours ago, mok said:

NOTE: Win10 installations took MULTIPLE atttempts for me on my older laptop, always gets stuck at 22%, eventually i let it sit overnight and the install was complete 

 

Its very hit or miss

 

I would strongly suggest creating system image onto another external HDD before upgrading OS in the future

 

Its been more than a year now and i can still use my System Image Backups to revert back to win7 if i wanted to (just in case something goes bad)

 

Can i ask what dell laptop youre using?
I was planning on upgrading from win7 pro to win10 pro on my other laptop, a latitude E6430

I'm using Dell Inspiron 3542

[Manas_4a]

What if I format my HDD. Then use the media creation tool to make installation media on another computer and use that to reinstall win8.1 . Will it mess up with the key?