I have a "new to me" Dell XPS 13 9315. I'm trying to factory reset the OS and running into a roadblock.

TLDR; The issue here is the Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery tool fails and errors with "Download verification was unsuccessful. Please restart the download process."

I've tried 3 different methods:

METHOD 1: build USB drive using Dell utility on another system

I created a bootable USB drive using Dell OS Recovery Image Creator. The tool has me enter the Dell service tag so it is aware of the CPU and what drivers will be needed for this system. I boot the XPS 13 and get into the BIOS by pressing F12 and to be clean about it, under Boot Configuration, I uncheck the Micron NVMe SSD so that it can only boot into my removable Kingston USB drive (which IS visible on the list of boot devices).

I boot into the USB and select the only prompts that make sense or are available:

a. select "reset and update"

b. do not do any backups of settings and personal files (I don't care about what is on this drive currently)

c. I understand that all data will be deleted - yep

d. Select a drive - only one is presented is the Micron NVMe SSD so that's what I select (this proves that the USB image has the necessary Micron driver loaded)

e. it starts to download but errors almost immediately with "Download verification was unsuccessful. Please restart the download process."

only options here are to cancel (back to the menu) or 'try again' which just fails the same way

In the background of the error, I can see that it is on the very first item in the list "Download Recovery Contents\\Operating System Recovery"

METHOD 2: SupportAssist OS Recovery launched from the system's BIOS

This method takes 15-20 minutes to download the OS files from the web but otherwise, it does the same thing. I answer the prompts the same as in #1 above and get the same error. I find this even more odd to fail on "download verification" because it was JUST DOWNLOADED, it's super fresh.

METHOD 3: build Microsoft Windows 11 bootable installation media

Taking Dell out of the picture and going direct with MS media because I understand that the Windows key is stored in the BIOS.

This is a work in progress.

Notes:

• there is no 'system' or 'admin' BIOS passwords configured because it never prompts for that on boot. BIOS screen shows that I could set them without entering an existing password.

• is there something else that could be locking this SSD drive? is it encrypted and that is not allowing the recovery to happen? The error suggests otherwise.

• I considered that the factory recovery partition on the SSD was missing or corrupt but method #1 should have gotten around that.

• possibly interesting - if I connect to my Canadian ISP directly for method #2, it fails very early in just trying to download the files with "an error occurred in app". If I connect to my router to my US VPN, it downloads all the files as described (weird) in method 2 but fails later on with the "Download verification was unsuccessful. Please restart the download process."

• I cannot find many hits on the web for this issue suggesting that it's quite rare and perhaps something unique to this specific laptop. One post suggests that the SSD is failing despite all checks coming back clean - hmmm. The only other vague hit suggests using a network cable - tried this. no help.

Any ideas on what I can do to get this thing reimaged?

I have a PB14250 Pro Plus 14” and I’m trying to reset it using the onboard OS recovery to put it back on Windows 11 Pro and when attempting to download it, it gives the error “Download verification was unsuccessful. Please restart the download process.”

I also tried using the OS Recovery tool to make a USB and I get the same issue.

Anyone else getting this?

Got a Dell Inspiron about a week ago. Was trying to get VSCode, Gradle, and Java Development Kit set up, when things went wrong. Started with start menu search being broken, ended with being unable to boot into Windows anymore. SupportAssist repair does say the partition is bad, and that it fixes it, but it doesn't. Or at least, it "fixed it" twice already. Trying to do the OS Recovery, it's only been a week, nothing too important on there. Tried three times already and every time I get a message "Download verification was unsuccessful. Please restart the download process" The reset to factory option is gone now too. Didn't want to do that since it goes to Windows 10, not Windows 11 like it came with, but now apparently can't even do that. What's the deal? Can't imagine download corrupted three times. Brand new laptop, a week in it's busted, and the recovery tool doesn't work. Anyone know a way to get this working? Plan to contact Dell support, see if they can't see why download always fails, and do something. Adjust on backend what iso it's trying to download? But, not home now, so can't get serial number. And, who knows if they can/will help, so planning ahead at other options.