Pc won't reset

Question

I bought an hp laptop at a yardsale yesterday that looked fairly new. The owner was elderly and said it belonged to his wife who had passed away several months ago and he did'nt know anything about computers but really needed the money so I bought it thinking I could reset it. When I got it home it is still asking for her password. I tried to reset it by holding the shift key and restarting and selecting troubleshoot, then reset this pc, then remove everything but it asks for a recovery key which I don't have. I then tried to reset it and keep files and it still says there was a problem resetting your pc. I went to command prompt and entered the scan prompt I found on youtube and it said it fixed the corrupted files but after the restart nothing changed. I can't seem to get anything to work. I want to completely wipe this laptop. Can someone help me please?

Answer 1

Hi. I'm David, and I'm happy to help you.

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Honestly, since you're running into a wall with the password and the recovery key, your best, and truly only, move here is to do a clean installation of Windows using an installation media (USB flash drive).

The original owner likely had BitLocker turned on. When BitLocker is active, Windows completely locks down the drive to protect the data. It won't let you do a built-in factory reset, use command prompts to bypass things, or keep files without that specific recovery key. It's a security feature doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Since you want to completely wipe the laptop anyway, a clean install from a USB bypasses the locked operating system entirely and formats the drive from scratch.

Since you mentioned it's "fairly new" but tagged Windows 10, I'll aim for Windows 10.

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If you don't have an installation media, create one using the Media Creation Tool.

You can create the installation media on an empty USB flash drive with at least 8GB.

1 = Below are instructions for creating installation media on a USB flash drive.

(You will need to create the installation media on a working Windows computer.)

1. Access the link below and click "Download now";

https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10

2. Double-click on the downloaded file to run the tool;
3. If prompted by UAC (User Account Control), click on "Yes";
4. Read the terms and click "Accept" if you agree;
5. Select "Create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC" and click "Next";
6. Uncheck the "Use the recommended options for this PC" box. Then, select the Language, Edition, and Architecture you want, and click "Next".

(Most computers use the "64-bit (x64)" Architecture.)

7. Select "USB flash drive" and click "Next".
8. Connect the USB flash drive you want to use, click the "Refresh drive list" link, select the USB flash drive, and click "Next";

(Note that the files on the USB flash drive will be deleted. Make a backup of the files if necessary.)

9. Wait for the procedure to finish and click "Finish" when the USB flash drive is ready.

2= Then, access the article below, go to the end of the article, and expand "Clean install" under "Steps to reinstall Windows with media" to see the instructions.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/reinstall-windows-with-the-installation-media-d8369486-3e33-7d9c-dccc-859e2b022fc7#:~:text=Steps%20to%20reinstall%20Windows%20with%20media

In your case, start the computer using the installation media and proceed from step 2.

(You may need to change the BOOT property in the device's BIOS settings. If you don't know how to do this, please tell me the laptop model.)

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Feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Answer 2

The recovery key prompt indicates the device is protected with BitLocker. Without that BitLocker recovery key, the drive contents (including Windows and all existing accounts) cannot be accessed or reset in place.

The BitLocker recovery key is normally tied to the Microsoft account that was used on the device. It can be retrieved only by the original owner from their Microsoft account or other locations they may have saved it. If the recovery key cannot be obtained, there is no way to unlock or reuse the existing Windows installation or data.

In that case, the only option to completely wipe and reuse the laptop is to delete the existing encrypted partitions and perform a clean install of Windows using separate installation media. This will erase all existing data on the drive.

Before doing any reset or reinstall on a BitLocker‑encrypted device, it is required to have the BitLocker recovery key available; otherwise, access to the current installation cannot be restored.

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References:

• Find your BitLocker recovery key
• Reset your PC
• Recovery options in Windows