I'm trying to help my sister fix her computer.
She was doing what a call a "factory reset" on an HP laptop running Windows 10. Midway through it, the computer shut down. Afterwards, she couldn't log onto Windows.
I checked the computer. It boots just fine, gets to the Windows GUI log-on screen and automatically logs on. Then, there is a HP Recovery Manager window saying that "The restoration did not complete" and it gives you three options, "save log", "details" and "retry". Also there's a command prompt in the background with a few lines of text saying "The system cannot find the drive specified."
My best theory is that some OS files are missing or corrupted. So far, I have tried to redo the "factory reset," but it would say that it cannot be completed every time. There's no restore point I can go back to.
Interestingly, I can get past the aforementioned windows after doing a Ctrl+Alt+Del and signing out, which brings me to the Windows logon screen again, but this time lets me choose the user (Administrator). It then lets me logon as usual, without any problems, which is baffling ---some GUI features, e.g. the "ask me anything" box may not work though. So, this only happens when I first turn-on the computer and log onto Windows.