Windows 8 PC Reset. Taking toooo long.

Anonymous
2012-10-28T21:09:54+00:00

Now I understand this will take a long time but I did NOT plan for it to take this long. When I upgraded Windows 7 to Windows 8 the format and upgrade only took 15 minutes. I was having some pc issues and said Hey! How about I use this new reset feature and start over again. WORST MISTAKE EVER! I have no clue what this is doing but this is taking forever. So far this thing moves up 6% every hour. It's been 3 hours now and it's still on 16% Can you all tell me what is this thing doing or is this some sort of error? My hard-drive size is 1TB clean and around 900gb when a OS is installed.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-03-30T20:41:58+00:00

    This post was dated at the end of 2012. To this date of 2015 Microsoft has done nothing to improve this program. I have and extremely fast PC and a fast Samsung SDD and a second 1TB HDD. Loading Windows 8 took minutes to install a complete. Resetting your PC is a joke! It is taking forever! I didn't even have a lot on my PC. It is taking 8 min. a percent! I'm at only 13%. At this rate I will be done around 11-12 hours! What only took minutes to install is taking 11-12 hours to reset? Double UHG!

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-04-02T10:13:17+00:00

    Hello Anthony,

    Thank you for your reply.

    I appreciate your concern.

    1. What is the reason of resetting Windows?
    2. Does your computer boot to the desktop?
    3. Did you try using suggestions provided in the previous post?

    If your computer boots to the desktop, then please use suggestions provided in the previous post and check if it helps.

    If Windows still does not reset, then you may create Windows installation media and then try to reset Windows.

    Refer this article:

    Create installation media for Windows 8.1

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media

    Also see:

    How to refresh, reset, or restore your PC

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/restore-refresh-reset-pc

    Note: All of your personal files will be deleted and your settings will be reset. All apps that you installed will be removed. Only apps that came with your PC will be reinstalled. So, I highly recommend to backup data and files on an external hard drive.

    I hope this information helps.

    Please do let us know if you need any further assistance.

    Thank you

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-04-02T11:38:12+00:00

    If you selected the option "Clean the Drive Fully" opposed to "Just Remove my Files" during the Reset it will take much longer.

    The standard Windows 8.1 install or "Just Remove my Files" during the Reset simply assigns all the previous data to free space.... This means previous user files still reside on the drive and recovery programs can usually scan the free space and restore files.

    The "Clean the Drive Fully" assigns all the previous data to free space and then overwrites it with junk data... Overwritten files are much more difficult to recover but it takes a long time to overwrite all the space on a 1 TB HDD. Its a neat feature that we used to have to use third party utilities such as DBAN to perform. DBAN however was more through as it done 7 passes by default, the "Clean the Drive Fully" just does one pass. I have left feedback for Windows 10 that this option should be available for a "Clean Install" also particularly from an old Windows version and not just a Reset.

    See here for more details:

    http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/a-clean-install-of-windows/a-clean-install-of-windows-8-1/windows-refresh-and-reset/windows-8-1-reset-with-clean-drive-fully/

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-04-10T00:31:18+00:00

    Are ya sure it will load? it's been 3 days and its at 68%. The weird thing is that I am refreshing mine, and not resetting it. Also, is there a way to stop it from refreshing? I wanna stop it from refreshing. Thanks

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