I have an Asus laptop running Windows 8.1. I intended to wipe it to give it to a friend that needs one right now, as I no longer use this laptop.
I tried first to reset my PC and it said it was unable to due to a missing drive partition.
At this point, I called a friend smarter than me to walk me through how to fix that.
He directed me to use Partition Wizard to set the partition labeled "System" to active and delete the other partitions. So I did.
And then the computer restarted and I got error code 0xc0000225, stating "Your PC needs to be repaired. A required device isnt connected or can't be accessed."
No longer trusting said "smart" friend, I consulted the almighty Google and found results that appeared to show I needed to reinstall Windows. So Some further searching led me to these directions for reinstalling Windows 8 on a computer from a USB drive (as this laptop does not have a CD drive). I got the Windows 8.1 download tool here and used the directions to create an iso file and copy it to the USB drive as directed.
On the Asus laptop, I plugged in the USB and changed the UEFI Firmware Settings to boot from the USB first. I then restarted the laptop and I'm still getting the exact same error message page as before.
I am perhaps (slightly) more educated than the average computer user, but at this point I am completely lost and unsure of what to do. Can anyone help me figure out what the next steps are?