I think it is widley known that Windows 8.1 broke the refresh feature and recovery options on HP laptops that were shipped with Windows 8. I just wondered if anyone found a possible solution because I've been searching for ages and still havent found a fix.
I do however have a possible solotion that I haven't tested but wanted people's thoughts!
Basically I remember once installing a downloaded version of Windows 8 in order to extract the recovery section because there was a similar problem but that just made things worse, however after calling HP they made me run the recovery option and it was all fixed. My idea is that if I downgrade to Windows 8, then do factory restore so that I get all the HP things and the offical version of Windows 8 and finally upgrade back to Windows 8.1. I know it's long but I don't mind, just wanted to see if anyone else thought this could work!