How To Factory Reset MSI Laptop? 2024 Guide

Last Updated/Fact Checked on December 12, 2023 by Irslan

When was the last time you booted up your laptop and found yourself staring at a screen full of icons you no longer recognized, with no idea how to get back to your desktop? 

Or maybe, like most people, you have a lot of passwords to remember. And if you’re like most people, you would sometimes forget them too, right?

Or even better that you might want to simply learn how to factory reset an MSI laptop for recreational purposes but didn’t know how? Or maybe you’ve done it before, but want to make sure you’re doing it correctly? 

Either way, If this sounds familiar, don’t worry—you’re not alone. There’s a good chance that you’ll need to factory reset your MSI laptop at some point. 

Which why we’ll walk you through the process of resetting your MSI laptop step-by-step. So keep reading to learn more.

Obligatory Caution

But wait, before you do that, there are a few things you need to know. If you don’t follow the instructions exactly as they’re written, you could end up losing all your data or worse, damaging your computer.

Failing to backup your data would be pretty stupid and we don’t want you to do something so stupid, do we? Of course not.

So please, for the love of all that is good and holy, backup your data before proceeding, otherwise I won’t be responsible for any data loss that might occur.

Steps On How To Backup Your DATA

if you don’t know how to backup your data, here is how you do it:

  1. Through USB Drive
  • Connect an external storage device to your computer. This could be a USB flash drive, an external hard drive, or even a cloud storage service like Dropbox or Google Drive.
  • Copy all your important files and data to the external storage device.
  • Once you’ve copied everything, disconnect the external storage device from your computer.
  1. Through Cloud Storage
  • You can also backup your data to cloud storage, which is what I would recommend.
  •  That way, even if you lose your external storage device, you’ll still have a copy of your data stored safely in the cloud.
  • You can choose multiple cloud storage services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.

Steps On How To Factory Reset MSI Laptop

Now that you’ve backed up your data, you’re ready to proceed with the factory reset. Just follow the steps below and you’ll be fine.

Windows Reset Utility Method

  1. The first thing you need to do is boot up your MSI laptop and then log into Windows.
  2. Once you’re logged in, click on the Start menu and then type “reset” into the search bar.
  3. You should see a “Reset this PC” option appear in the search results. Click on it.
  4. Now you should see a window with two options: “Keep my files” and “Remove everything”.
  5. Since we’re doing a factory reset, we want to select the “Remove everything” option.
  6. Click on “Get started” under the “Remove everything” option.
  7. Now you should see a new window with two options: “Just remove my files” and “Remove files and clean the drive”.
  8. The “Remove files and clean the drive” option will take a bit longer but it will also make sure that any data recovery attempts on your computer will be unsuccessful. So we recommend selecting this option.
  9. Click on “Next” and then wait for the process to finish.
  10. Once it’s done, your MSI laptop will be reset to its factory settings and you can start using it like new again.

Through Boot Menu Method

  1. The first thing you need to do is shut down your computer. Once it’s off, turn it back on, and as soon as you see the MSI logo appear on your screen, press the F11 key repeatedly. Doing this should bring up the Boot Menu.
  2. If it doesn’t work, don’t worry, just try again. Sometimes it takes a few tries before it works.
  3. Once you’ve successfully accessed the Boot Menu, use the arrow keys to highlight the “Boot from EFI file” option and then press Enter.
  4. Now you should see a list of files appear on your screen. Find the one that says “Windows Boot Manager” and then press Enter.
  5. This should boot up your computer and take you to the Windows Recovery Environment.
  6. Once you’re in the Windows Recovery Environment, select the “Troubleshoot” option.
  7. Next, select “Advanced options and finally, select “Startup Settings”.
  8. Click on the “Restart” button and wait for your computer to restart.
  9. Once it does, you should see a list of options appear on your screen. Use the arrow keys to highlight the “Disable driver signature enforcement” option and then press Enter.
  10. Doing this will allow you to install unsigned drivers, which we need to reset your MSI laptop.
  11. Now that we’ve disabled driver signature enforcement, we need to boot up from a USB drive.
  12. To do this, insert the USB drive into your computer and then restart it. Once it starts booting up again, press the F11 key repeatedly until you see the Boot Menu appear on your screen.
  13. Use the arrow keys to highlight the “Boot from EFI file” option and then press Enter.
  14. Find the file that says “Bootx64.efi” and then press Enter. This should boot up your computer from the USB drive.
  15. Once your computer has booted up from the USB drive, you should see the Windows setup screen appear on your screen click on “Install now”.
  16. Accept the terms and conditions and then click on “Next”.
  17. Now you should see a list of options appear. Select the “Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)” option and click on “Next”.
  18. Now you should see a list of drives appear on your screen. Select the one that says “Drive 0 Unallocated Space” and then click on the “New” button and then click on “Apply” and then click on “OK”.
  19. Now select the drive that says “Drive 0 Partition 1” and then click on the “Delete” button.
  20. Click on “Apply” and then click on “OK”.
  21. Now select the drive that says “Drive 0 Unallocated Space” again and then click on the “Next” button and wait for the process to finish and then click on “Restart now”.
  22. Once your computer has restarted, you should see the Windows setup screen appear on your screen again.
  23. Click on “Next” and click on “Use express settings”.
  24. Create a username and password and then click on “Next”.
  25. And that’s it! Your MSI laptop should now be reset to its factory settings. Enjoy!

And that’s all there is to it. Just follow the steps we listed above and you’ll be able to reset your MSI laptop without any problems.

Final Word

We hope this article was helpful and that you were able to gain knowledge regarding how to factory reset your MSI laptop without any issues. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them down below and we’ll try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading!