Evening all.

I bought a new HP laptop on Friday. Powered it up and did the recommended upgrade to Windows 10. Since then I’ve had issues with getting a wifi connection and getting out of sleep mode. So tonight I decided to take advantage of the option to roll back to Windows 8.1. Followed the instructions, including the “do not continue if you can’t remember your original login”. Anyway, roll back completed and now at login screen, have typed in password but access is denied!!!

I’ve tried every permutation of password that it could possibly be but no luck.

Anyone able to offer any advice?

Ta!

try linux? windows is not the only OS 🙂

if you use a bootable isk you will be able to acess the files on your drive and copy anything off if you need to

If you don’t have any personal files saved on it yet then I’d do a factory reset; this works for Win8, and hopefully would take you from 10 back to 8

As above, I went Win 7 to 10 and straight to Linux. It just works

Does the laptop have a recovery partition, if not you obviously made the recovery media it would have prompted you to do when you got it?
If it’s new there will probably be some kind of factory support available
http://support.hp.com/gb-en/contact-hp
If not where did you buy it from?

Mash F8 on boot, it should take you to a boot menu where you can pick ‘repair’ or some variation thereof. From there you should then have the option to reset it to factory defaults.

Two common issues with 10 there. If you decide to try 10 agian you need to find the correct wifi driver and also put the latest bios into it.

I had the exact same problem with my dell.

If all fails witbh the 8.1 rollback you can download the 10 iso from MS and do a clean install of 10 (this is what I would do as 10 is much better than 8.1)

timba – Member
straight to Linux. It just works

Try this?

Hope you didn’t encrypt anything with EFS.

I used to use a boot disk to do this and overwrite the admin password, but this looks less hassle.

The Win 10 trouble will most likely be you need to pick up some updated drivers. They may arrive in a Windows update, or just check the manufacturers web site. That’s usually the only issue people find on upgrading to 10.

timba – Member
As above, I went Win 7 to 10 and straight to Linux. It just works

When you have time to wade through all the nerdy Linux forums to work out how to do things or why something broke with one of the thousands of regular package updates and then be told you have to edit this and that config file, or you want to hook up a new device and find there are no drivers for it and back into the forums and you are told tough, go write the driver yourself, or to get something to work you have to recompile the kernel!

If you just want very basic functionality you may be okay, but I’d advise getting a Chromebook instead for that. Anything else and I still say Linux is no good for the desktop for the average and less computer literate user. Not knocking it for servers. I use it all the time.

Mash F8 on boot, it should take you to a boot menu where you can pick ‘repair’ or some variation thereof. From there you should then have the option to reset it to factory defaults.

Not on windows 10!

It’s not Win 10 now, it’s Win 8.1. Or that’s how I read it.

Well F8 is a bios thing, so should work whatever, and at the worst you should be able to do a system restore.

Another regular Linux user here – I’m doing stuff which gets quite into the nitty gritty of booting and drivers – and I wouldn’t recommend it in this case either.

Well F8 is a bios thing, so should work whatever, and at the worst you should be able to do a system restore.

Its not (its part of the os bootloader) and it doesn’t. Especially if you have an UEFI bios and SSD.

Slight thread drift I know but on Win 10 it looks like if you can’t boot and didn’t create a recovery flash drive/cd then you are screwed (other than reinstall).

straight to Linux. It just works

I will confess to having to research a couple of things that were far simpler in Windows, such as being able to access all files rather than just those that relate to my login, and doing a virus scan on downloaded files (!), but generally it’s been painless compared to when I last tried it about 12 years ago when it was a terminal nightmare. My old laptop likes it too

Linux is the way forward.

Hah.

When Linux goes wrong, you’ve got nothing except an army of bedroom nerds to help you out. Nothing is guaranteed to work, even if it’s purported to. You might be lucky, you might not.

If I were Canonical (makers of Ubuntu) or similar, I’d be publishing lists of what new laptops work fine with their OS, or maybe creating builds for popular laptops and publishing them.

All the shit I’ve had from Windows is NOTHING compared to Linux when something isn’t supported, or flat out doesn’t work. There are certain specific reasons why it can work very well but don’t go recommending it to all and sundry 🙂

Linux is the way forward.

People have been saying that for years, and it’s still not happened.

OP, just take it back to the shop if it’s only a few days old.

+1 Take it back. flutter your eyelashes and hope they take pity on you.

it’s Christmas

My Surface Pro 4 wouldn’t connect to any network, so I tried a reset and it pretty much died.

Apparently Windows 10 is known for this.

Took it back to PC World and was given a new one, no questions

Linux is the way forward.

People have been saying that for years, and it’s still not happened.[/quote]
Same with Mac and both are still niche.

If f8 doesn’t work use whatever gets you into the bios and see if you have a recovery partition or can at least turn on boot menu.

Paul – where about are you based? I’m happy to have a look if you so happen to be nearby.