Cannot recover windows

[Ashish_5]

Hi, I've been having issues with my Toshiba satellite laptop since upgrading to Windows 10. I started getting the endless start up recovery loop. So using command prompt from recovery I have backed up my files onto usb. I had to make a bootable recovery usb from my brothers laptop (windows 7 upgraded to Windows 10). I tried all the restore and reset options. I'm now at a stage where, using disk part, the drive has been formatted and 'cleaned', so I don't have an OS installed. The recovery from drive option now says "unable to recover your pc. the system drive is too small" and the reset option says "the drive where windows is installed is locked"please help if possible!

 

[Laptop_Nerd]

Hi,

In your case you need to use a System Recovery disc from Toshiba themselves because the error that you are getting can only be fixed using that Factory Reset disc from them. Once you got the disc make sure to load BIOS to it factory setting first by pressing F9 then save it before you run the System Recovery Disc.

 

[Barty1884]

It sounds like you've created a recovery image of your brothers laptop rather than a 'clean' OS.

Now you've formatted your HDD, you could create a bootable USB using the mediacreation tool for Windows 10 and re-install your OS......that'll bring back your activation also.

Unfortunately that doesn't help if the issues you were experiencing are related to W10 and you want to 'roll back' to W7 (although if you've formatted your HDD - I think 'officially' you've forfeited that option).

If you want to get back to W7, you'll need your product key (hopefully a sticker on your laptop somewhere).
You'll also need the correct W7 media that corresponds with the product key (eg. Windows 7, w/Spk 1) - either via a disc, or bootable USB (MS don't provide the ISOs any longer - you'd need to take a chance via Google & downloads to get this) and reinstall.