Resolved Dell Laptop Appears to Have Been Reset to Factory

A friend complained that she was unable to use her computer to get her email and everything was gone from the screen. Translation - I think that. somehow, she managed to reset the computer to factory setting and all installed programs and data that had been created were gone along with all the Desktop Icons.

Here are some indicators:

• Installed Version shows as 1511. No update history. Version 1903 waiting to be installed.
• All the Microsoft apps and most of the Dell apps show Dec 2020 install dates.
• All documents are gone - did find photos on an external hard drive and Office documents up to early December 2020 on a Lexar Jumbo thumb drive. Found the documents in an archived/zipped? folder which would let me view them but not open them. I'll address that issue in another thread.
• One restore point available from Dec 19 2020 - Installed product registration which I assume was created at the time the incident occurred.

If I am correct is my assumption or the Factory Reset, is there any hope of restoration noting that it would apparently not be available through a restore point.

 

Steve,
That was a good thought - but no luck. Other than the Public User there were no others listed. It looks like we just have to pretty much start over - won't be that big a deal since we have the photos and word processing documents on external media.

I'll mark this one "Solved" and pursue the issue of being unable to open Word documents on the thumb drive in the Lexar community forums. If I strike out there, I will open a new thread here.