Windows 10: Installed W10 over OEM and now am without recovery

Hello !
I have a toshiba l50-c which has windows 10 preinstalled (with all drivers and apps), i usually do a reset PC and revert to original state, today i did something wrong. I installed windows 10 from USB (using media creator) and now i have a stripped windows edition with no drivers or software.

My question is how can i restore my laptop to it's original state ? I have a windows.old folder with (recovery folder in it,windows,program files, etc .. ), also i did not do any formatting so recovery disks is already there.

I tried many solutions like (reset pc from boot), (open setting and look for 'revert to older windows installations' but it's not there).

:)

 

Clean installing windows 10

A clean install only erases the partition that you'll be using to install Windows. However, Windows 10 will create its own recovery partition - so you can reset or refresh Windows 10 - and that may over-write your OEM recovery partition.

Whether or not your OEM recovery partition will be overwritten depends on how the OEM setup its recovery utility. You can always ask your computer manufacturer whether Windows 10 will overwrite the OEM recovery partition.

This is just a suggestion: If you're not in a big hurry to install Windows 10 (and why would you be?) then you can learn to make a disk image backup. With a disk image, you can quickly return to your old operating system even without the OEM recovery partition.
In fact, the image solution is even better, because the image is a copy of the way your hard disk is now, while the OEM factory recovery takes you back to the first day you brought the computer home.

 

Getting Windows 10 After July?

Windows 10 includes an updated repair / recovery / reset / refresh tool that lets you reinstall the OS and retain current data without having to revert to original pre-upgrade condition. There is a hidden recovery environment which you can boot into if
needed. The recovery files are kept up to date with each new build of W10.

So you now have a machine that can have W10 installed on it from scratch, W10 re-installed over the existing installation, or as an upgrade to your old W8.1 installation at any time in the future.

I tested this over the last few months myself. You do not have a unique product key for W10 but a digital entitlement. If you use a product key finding tool such as 'Show Key plus' it will display your original key and a default W10 key. MS activation
databases hold unique machine identifiers to enable automatic activation of your machine at any time in the future.

You could also create an install USB stick or DVD with the mediacreationtool.exe and install W10 on a new blank disk on this machine if you wished, just skip the part where it prompts for a licence number. When the machine boots and has an internet
connection it will activate with MS automatically.

 

It's not clear how you did the install do you have the option in control panel to role back as you have a Windows old it should be there

 

i used windows media creator to create bootable usb drive for windows installation, then opened the 'install' icon in usb and installed windows 10 creator update over (my original) windows 10 creator update ..
and no the rollback option is not there, but the windows.old is.

 

"My question is how can i restore my laptop to it's original state ?"

The only ways you can do that is to
1) Use the Recovery partition put there by the manufacturer.
2) Use a copy of that which they asked you to make when you purchase a Toshiba Laptop, either on DVDs or a USB drive.
3) Use a Recovery drive you have made at some point.

The above will of course contain drivers and Toshiba specific bits like system driver, custom Function Key application etc.
The fact you have a windows.old folder means you have done a major version update since installing Windows 10. That is deleted automatically after 10 days or so.


I am using a slightly earlier L50-A Toshiba. For mine the Toshiba specific bits come from Toshiba, I made a driver folder and copy of those. and all the rest from Windows updates, some of which are Toshiba customised variations.

If I ever use the Windows 10 install media, then that is why I have those, but that is more long winded than just using a recovery drive.

 

If you didnt clean install and old is there
To uninstall the Creators Update, go to Start > Settings and click on 'Update & security'.
Click the Recovery link and then click on 'Get started' under 'Go back to the previous version of Windows 10.'
Provided you haven’t yet cleared up all the space used by the update, the rollback process will start.
You’ll now be asked why you are going back to the previous build. You can select from:

• My apps or devices don’t work on this build
• Earlier builds seemed easier to use
• Earlier builds seemed faster
• Earlier builds seemed more reliable
• For another reason

 

I would check out the folder in part one here:
Create Provisioning Package in Windows 10 Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

If you have a provisioning package in that folder, then you should be able to create a recovery drive with that provisioning package included:
Create Recovery Drive in Windows 10 Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials

A provisioning package is all the extra stuff added by the manufacturer.

Installing Windows 10 from that drive, if there was a provisioning package present, should restore the factory software. If you want to save the factory software on a new computer, then you need to either save an image of the hard drive when it is new with a program like Macrium Reflect (which is what I do), or create the recovery drive using the above referenced method (or with software provided by the manufacturer).

Normally, I make a backup image of the original hard drive, play with the factory software for about 5 minutes, then wipe it and install vanilla Windows 10 from Microsoft.

 

On most computers there is a recovery partition which you would normally have access to upon system boot via pressing a specific key (usually a function key such as F11). This partition has every thing to restore you computer to way it was the day you bought it. Unfortunately when you install a new Windows such as you did the code that processes the key function is over written and it becomes almost impossible to use that recovery partition as intended. That is a fact that Microsoft and manufactures rarely mention.

Most manufactures do have a program installed in Windows that will allow you to create recovery media using DVD's or an USB flash drive. This program will create the necessary media to restore your computer to like the day you bought it. Usually you can only run this program once and it remembers.

If you did not make recovery DVD's or USB flash drive you might be able to order them from the manufacture for a fee. Short of that you live with what you currently have. Go to the manufacturer's website and look for drivers and software for your specific model.

 

So i can't just use the windows.old folder and it's components to revert back to original state, as i said earlier there is no option in settings>recovery to rollback, but i've been reading online that it can be done using CMD (outside windows) to rename current windows folders and replace it with content of windows.old folder (works on W7 but not sure about 10).

 

could you please steer me into one of these softwares ??

 

You were steered to it in post #6. In Windows 10, manufacturers provide their recovery software in the form of a provisioning package that gets included when you run the Windows 10 built-in Create Recovery Drive utility.

 

It is really odd that you still have a Windows.old folder but no option in Settings>Recovery to rollback.

 

No - this happens if recovery partition is deleted or corrupted.

OP - post image of partitions from disk management.