Hi, I had to order recovery disks for a HP Pavilion desktop so that I could do a clean install of Windows 8 whereby it refused to update and ended up screwing the hard drive up completely by not being able to boot windows or anything whatsoever. The initial error messages before the hard drive was screwed was "failure configuring windows after update, reverting changes" I fitted it with a new hard drive, and used the recovery discs supplied by HP and installed windows. Upon installing windows there were 122 updates and after re-starting the same thing happened "failure configuring windows after update, reverting changes" I found by using this forum that "secure boot" was enabled in bios, and by disabling it could do the trick but by doing this I still had no joy and was eventually forced into starting over again by doing another clean install. Upon installing windows 8 again, I tried to only do a few of the 122 updates at a time and managed to get the majority of them done (which took ages) up to the point of being able to download and install windows 8.1 from the store, which I did.. After windows 8.1 was installed, I was presented with the new desktop/look etc of windows 8.1 which all looked ok, but realized my Norton had gone along with Microsoft Office and couldn't connect to the internet. Re-start the computer I thought! The computer didn't re-start and went into repair just like it did in the first place, forcing me to clean install again. I tried 3 hard drives doing the steps above with secure boot on and off and still have had no luck. I don't know what is causing the machine to flip when something is changed on it. any input, help or similar experiences would be appreciated
Hi Guys, thanks for getting back. Installing windows 8.1 was my next idea but wasn't sure whether it could be done so thanks for answering that question for me. I will try using genet's link above and use the media creation tool. When you say what version, I suppose you mean 32 or 64 bit? and it's windows 8 home not pro.. sword
There is no Windows 8/8.1 Home version. "Edition of Windows. You should also choose the same edition of Windows. This might be Windows 8.1 or Windows 8.1 Pro. To check what edition you're currently running, go to PC info in PC settings or System in Control Panel, and look for Windows edition." i.imgur.com/OQEBBS6.png
Ok thanks for all your help, I will try to install windows 8.1 directly tomorrow using the suggested advice above and see what happens. I'll reply once it's done
Thanks, genet for the media creator, it worked perfectly and no doubt I will need it again so a MASSIVE thanks.
Well good news! The clean install of 8.1 has gone through a treat and the first batch of updates have installed. I am now going to continue to update it to the max and see what happens, then I will put Norton on and see where we go from there. I am pretty confident it will be ok this time though, so thanks again for all your input. I noticied that when installing it, there was a partition called "HP Tools" still on the drive after my last install - After researching about it is I found that this is where HP put an update in which fiddles with the UEFI settings I deleted all partitions on this hard drive, then proceeded to install windows 8.1 and everything works fine, therefore I think it was this hidden partition on the drive that may have caused the problems in the first place.