MSI Factory Restore not showing up in F3 boot screen?

[Janie_]

My laptop, a MSI GE62 2QD Apache Pro, started freezing and acting funny so I decided to use the F3 boot option to restore it to factory settings to speed it up like it used to be. The problem is, the only option under the Troubleshoot menu in F3 recovery for me is either "Reset This PC" or "Shut Down PC". I do not have the option that I'm supposed to have of "Restore MSI Factory Settings". I know that it had it before as I had done a factory reset at one point in time when I was planning on selling it. I tried the "Reset This PC" option since that was supposed to do basically the same thing but it messed my laptop all up; I can't even get my Steelseries app to recognize my computer now and it's running really, really slow. I just want to get it back to factory out of the box status and I don't have any files that I need to keep. Can anyone help me figure out where my Restore MSI Factory Settings option went?

 

[Saga Lout]

Are you sure there isn't another Function key option on offer, other than BIOS?

Which version of Windows are you running? If it's 10, press the power button to turn it off and if necessary, do that after several restarts. Soon enough, Windows will get angry and tell you how naughty you've been and it will offer you StartUp Repair options. One of those will be Reset and the other is Refresh.

In spite of what Refresh promises, it will kill your data but that doesn't matter to you so you can choose either.

 

[Janie_]

Are you sure there isn't another Function key option on offer, other than BIOS?

Which version of Windows are you running? If it's 10, press the power button to turn it off and if necessary, do that after several restarts. Soon enough, Windows will get angry and tell you how naughty you've been and it will offer you StartUp Repair options. One of those will be Reset and the other is Refresh.

In spite of what Refresh promises, it will kill your data but that doesn't matter to you so you can choose either.

I don't know what you mean by another Function key offer as I don't know too much about computer troubleshooting so I'm a newbie at this. I do have Windows 10 on my computer so I'll try doing what you suggested and see if that may possibly fix it and will update back.

 

[Saga Lout]

When you first turn on the machine, on the first black screen, sometimes there are references to Function keys to press for certain actions, before the Windows system starts up.

I was hoping there might be an offer to reset the machine back to the day it left the factory.

 

[Janie_]

When you first turn on the machine, on the first black screen, sometimes there are references to Function keys to press for certain actions, before the Windows system starts up.

I was hoping there might be an offer to reset the machine back to the day it left the factory.

Unfortunately no. It only says MSI on that screen with no info for another Function key that can be pressed. I did try to go into the system restore option in settIngs after login as well but it just pulls up the same "reset" option there too, and on other troubleshooting guides the "msi factory settings" option is supposed to be on that screen too so it's just like it's disappeared on mine for some reason. I have managed to at least get my Steelseries engine to recognize my keyboard again by uninstalling and reinstalling a couple times but the computer itself is still running really slow. In the system options menu it dies say that there are several windows updates that can be done on my computer even though I have it setup for automatic updating. Do you think this would help or should I avoid any unnecessary updates?

 

[Saga Lout]

Let's leave resetting for a moment and try some fixing posibilities.

I'm leaning towards suspecting your hard disk and adding Windows updates would only make matters worse by putting added strains on that disk.

If you can bring up a Command Prompt, type
chkdsk /r
then hit Enter. That will run the Checkdisk facility and the /r switch asks it to fix any errors it finds.

When that's run, it would also be worth finding the RAM (memory sticks) and if there are more than one of them, removing one to see if things improve and if it doesn't, putting that stick back and removing the other.

I'm nott out of ideas yet - the next will be to run the System File Checker to see if Windows has issues of its own.

 

[Janie_]

Let's leave resetting for a moment and try some fixing posibilities.

I'm leaning towards suspecting your hard disk and adding Windows updates would only make matters worse by putting added strains on that disk.

If you can bring up a Command Prompt, type
chkdsk /r
then hit Enter. That will run the Checkdisk facility and the /r switch asks it to fix any errors it finds.

When that's run, it would also be worth finding the RAM (memory sticks) and if there are more than one of them, removing one to see if things improve and if it doesn't, putting that stick back and removing the other.

I'm nott out of ideas yet - the next will be to run the System File Checker to see if Windows has issues of its own.

okay, so i figured out how to do the checkdisk and system file checker stuff. I started with the command chkdsk C: /f /r /x and it said it couldn't run it because the drive was in use. So then I googled what else to do and entered the command sfc /scannow . That said that it found corrupt files in the CBS log but that it couldn't fix them, so after much googling I came up with this set of steps:
1. Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth - running this gave an error that said source files could not be found
2. Put computer into CleanBoot and then ran sfc /scannow again, got same message that corrupt files couldn't be fixed and CleanBoot did not help with lagging issues on the computer either.
2. Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
3. sfc /scannow
4. Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
5. sfc /scannow
After doing those things it said that the corrupted files had been fixed and sfc said something about the system being restored and everything running the way it should be. At that point, I did a restart and went into the F3 boot menu just to see if that missing option was there of "Restore to MSI Factory Settings" and it still wasn't.
I told the computer to shut down for the evening because by this time it's 3am and I'm over it, and instead of the normal "Sleep, Restart, Shut Down" options it said "Sleep, Restart, Update and Restart, Shut Down, or Update and Shut Down".
I decided to do the Update and Shut Down option to see if that was an update the computer was doing to fix any of those corrupted files and maybe reinstall the "Restore MSI Factory Settings" option, but when I got up this morning and turned the computer on and went into F3 again it's still not there, and when I logged in to the computer and started running different programs it's still really laggy and it takes about two minutes for any program I select to even come up. Any idea what I should try to do next?

 

[Saga Lout]

Just for clarification, do you have an MSI manual that says there is definitely a factory settings restoration facility and that it should show up at boottime? I know you've seen it before but it wouldn't be connected to the Windows OS at all because it takes place before that can boot.

A Reset would mean almost the same thing so maybe it's worth a try.

In the absence of that, I wonder if it has to be started by a programme from within Windows. Is there an MSI folder in Programme Files (x86)?

 

[Janie_]

Just for clarification, do you have an MSI manual that says there is definitely a factory settings restoration facility and that it should show up at boottime? I know you've seen it before but it wouldn't be connected to the Windows OS at all because it takes place before that can boot.

A Reset would mean almost the same thing so maybe it's worth a try.

In the absence of that, I wonder if it has to be started by a programme from within Windows. Is there an MSI folder in Programme Files (x86)?

TBH I don't remember if it came with a physical manual because I don't know where it is. There is a user manual that was pre-installed on the computers home screen but it doesn't say anything about the f3 boot screen on there, just how to go into the start menu and reset from there and it dies say there should be the option to either reset or restore to factory settings. I have done the reset option as well and it didn't seem to help, in fact it made it worse because at that point my Steelseries engine wouldn't even recognize the keyboard and I had to uninstalle and reinstall that program and then update it to get it to work. I will check to see if there is an msi folder in the program files and get back to you on it.