How to restore lenovo laptop to factory settings

Experiencing Windows unable to start, Operating System corruption, computer virus, forgotten admin password? This tutorial will show you how to restore your PC to factory defaults without entering Windows. The following 3 effective ways to reset Lenovo laptops (IdeaPad / Yogo / ThinkPad / Ultrabooks) to factory settings without entering any password.

How to Reset system using Lenovo OneKey Recovery if Windows failed to start

The Novo button comes with Lenovo Onekey recovery software. This allows you to enter Lenovo Onekey recovery if the PC fails to boot normally. Under the Novo Button Menu, there is an option to perform system recovery. If your Lenovo laptops are not preloaded with Lenovo OneKey Recovery. Use the "Reset this PC" feature to recover the operating system.

Step 1: Power off your PC, then use the tip of an unfolded paper clip (or similar object with a sharp tip) to gently press the Novo button (The button menu varies based on different software versions.). The Novo button menu will be shown as in the image below, then choose System Recovery.

Step 2: Click Troubleshoot > Reset this PC.

Step 3: Two options are available:

• Keep my files will remove all apps and programs that did not come with this PC, change settings back to their default, and reinstall Windows without removing your personal files. See Step 4.
• Remove everything will remove your personal files, accounts, and apps/programs that did not come with this PC and any changes made to the settings. See Step 6.

Step 4: To keep personal files intact after resetting the PC, click the Keep my files button. If prompted, select the PC account name, type the password, and click the Continue button.

If you don't know the password of the account, you can use a professional Windows password recovery tool to remove or reset it. See ProTip.

Step 5: Finally click the Reset button to proceed with the AC adapter plugged in.

Step 6: To remove applications, settings, and personal files after resetting the PC, click the Remove Everything button.

Step 7: Select Local reinstall.

Step 8: There are two options for removing files. Based on your request, select the appropriate settings.

• Just remove my file: Use this if you're keep your PC.
• Fully clean the drives: Use this if you'll recycle the PC. This can take several minutes.

Step 9: Click Reset. The computer will start to reinstall Windows. Make sure the AC adapter is connected.

How to Factory Reset Lenovo with a USB Recovery Drive (or Windows Installation Media)

If you are having trouble logging into Windows because you've forgot the password, then you can try this way. the process of factory reset laptop works only for the device previouly recovery drive or have a Windows installation media.

Step 1: Connect the USB recovery drive to the PC.

Step 2: Power on the system and continually tap the F12 key to open the boot selection menu.

Step 3: Use the arrow keys to highlight the USB recovery drive in the list and press Enter.

Step 4: The system will now load the recovery software from the USB drive.

Step 5: Choose your keyboard layout and then click Troubleshoot on the main menu.

Step 6: Select the “Recover from a drive” option.

If you have not created a recovery drive before, you can still use the Windows installation disc to reset the system without entering any password. You can download the latest Windows 10 ISO disc image file to other computers and use the media creation tool to create a bootable USB drive. Once you have the installation media, do the following:

1. Insert your installation disc, then, repeately press the F12 key to open the boot selection menu.

2. Select the Windows installation disc as the startup device and press Enter to boot from the installation disc.

2. When your PC boot with the Windows 10 installation media, click Next on the first page and then select Repair your computer.

3. On the next page click on Troubleshoot > Reset This PC > Remove everything successively.

4. According to your need, select the appropriate option.

5. Click the "Reset" and follow the on-screen instructions to reinstall and customize your Windows operating system.

Pro Tip: Remove (Reset) Windows 10 password

If you have trouble resetting the system because you forgot the password of your user account, you can try this way to delete or reset the unknown password.

Step 1: On another Windows-based computer, install and run Windows Password Refixer.

Step 2: Insert a blank USB flash drive, then burn the Windows Password Refixer to a USB flash drive to create a password reset disk.

Step 3: After done, remove the USB drive and plug it into the locked Lenovo laptop.

Step 4: Restart the PC, then press F12 (or Fn+F12) to boot from the USB drive.

Step 5: When it boots, the Windows Password Refixer will display the Windows 10 OS running on your Lenovo laptop and lists all user accounts existing on the laptop. Select the user which you need to remove or reset the password for, and then click the Reset Password button. A pop-up dialog will ask if you want to reset the password, just click Yes to agree.

Step 6: After done. Click Reboot and disconnect the USB drive to restart the laptop for the changes to take effect. After the laptop starts, you can go the steps of resetting your system.

Related Articles

Factory reset Lenovo desktop to its default status can help you solve any problem with your computer. Here are 3 free methods for you, just pick one of them.

By @Ivy Last Updated May 19, 2022

Content of this article:

Need to factory reset Lenovo desktop

Sometimes, users may want to factory reset the Lenovo desktop owing to virus attack, blue screen of death, system crashes, etc, otherwise they cannot use it for any operation. Then, how to make it?

You can use Lenovo OneKey Recovery, it's a pre-installed backup and recovery software that comes along with a factory image of your computer, with OS, some necessary drivers, pre-installed software. Also, you can use Reset this PC on your computer. If you forget password, using installation disc will be a better choice. Besides, you still can use one more powerful onekey recovery software. 

Please keep reading below to learn steps in each way. 

Way 1: Reset Lenovo desktop to factory settings with Lenovo OneKey Recovery

Lenovo OneKey Recovery can help you do Lenovo desktop reset to factory default as long as you don’t reinstall the system or resize partition on the disk.

To do Lenovo desktop factory reset in Windows 11/10/8/7, you need to go and find the Novo button at the first. It’s usually at the upper left corner of the Power button. Then, see below and go to reset Lenovo desktop to factory settings.

Note: You can use Lenovo OneKey Recovery to factory reset Lenovo Yoga, Ideapad, but it is not applicable to Think brands such as ThinkCentre.

Step 1. Press the Novo button for a few seconds and select System Recovery in the Novo Button Menu.

Step 2. To perform Lenovo desktop reset to factory, select “Restore from initial backup”. 

Tip:  The second option “Restore from user’s backup” will be a better choice if you create one user backup before your computer stop working. Because it will retain all the items you backed up in this image file. 

Step 3. Click Start and wait until the process is finished. Then, follow the instructions on the screen to configure the settings.

 Way 2: Reset Lenovo PC to factory settings without password using Reset this PC

In Windows 11/10/8.1/8, there is an easy way to reset your PC by pressing and holding Shift key while clicking Restart button. However, in this way, you need to select the user account and type password. If you forget the password, you still can use the installation disc to avoid typing password. Here I'll use the installation disc as an example to show you the detailed steps.

Step 1. Connect your installation disc and set boot priority for the disc. You can press F1/F2 to enter BIOS, use arrow keys to select Boot and move the CD-ROM Drive to the first option using “+” on the numeric keypad, then press F10 to save it.

Step 2. Press any key to boot from the disc when you receive the error message “Press any key to boot from CD /DVD” on screen. Then, it will start loading files.

Step 3. After loading files, you will access the installation screen. Click Next and then Repair your computer > Troubleshoot > Reset This PC.

Step 4. Select Remove everything. Only in this way, you can bypass the password from the user account.

Step 5. Select the current Windows operating system and drive you want to reset. You have two options, either “Only the drive where Windows is installed” or “All drives”.

Step 6. Select the way to reset your computer, using “Just remove my files”  or “Fully clean the drive”.

Step 7. Then, confirm and click Reset to start the Lenovo desktop factory reset in Windows 10.

Way 3: Factory reset Lenovo desktop in Windows 11/10/8/7 via AOMEI OneKey Recovery

Besides the built-in tools, some users choose to use a reliable third-party one key recovery software to protect their computer, AOMEI OneKey Recovery, for example. It does not come along with a factory image, but you can create onekey system backup when you get it for the first time. And it allows you to schedule backup system with daily, weekly, monthly scheduler, thereby keeping changes between previous backup and the next one.

Then, you can easily reset Lenovo desktop to factory settings in Windows 11/10/8/7 or just previous status with everything on it. It works even you use all the unallocated space and change the disk space of system drive. And it applies to all brandy computers, , such as, Lenovo, Dell, HP, and ASUS. 

Step 1. Download AOMEI OneKey Recovery, install and launch it. Then, click OneKey System Recovery.

Step 2. Tick the first option if you were backup to AOMEI OneKey Recovery partition. Then, click Next.

Tip: If you create Lenovo OneKey Recovery to new hard drive or other external devices, you need to tick the second option. Please remember to connect the disk containing the image to your computer in advance.

Step 3. Confirm the system will be overwritten and you want to restore your computer to factory settings. Then, click Start Restore to execute this process.

Safer way to make your computer run smoothly without factory reset: 

AOMEI OneKey Recovery works only when your computer runs smoothly or it is slightly damaged. If it fails completely, you cannot use it for system recovery.  To avoid such a situation, you can use one more powerful backup software - AOMEI Backupper Standard.

Similarly, it will create a system image including everything on the system partition and allow you to schedule backup it. By default, this software backup only changed files, which greatly saves disk space and backup time. The difference is that the backup image is not saved on a bootable media and you can create one separately. And you can recover system in any situation, even it is unbootable.

Wrapping things up

Hope the above ways can help you perform Lenovo desktop factory reset without any obstacle. If you want to do Lenovo desktop factory reset but forget the password, use Reset this PC with help of installation disc. In the long run, it's suggested to backup system with a reliable backup software and restore from user backup instead of factory image. It will not include your personal data and software that does not come along with your computer.

AOMEI OneKey Recovery is a good choice. It allows you to continuously protect your system with its Scheduler feature. And it can be used on many brand computers (Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc) and supports all the Windows systems. To backup and restore system for unlimited computers, or has the need of providing billable technical services to clients or customize UI, try AOMEI OneKey Recovery Technician or Customization.