I grow weary of my long day with all of you kind helpers. I do not think I did the Trend Micro rescue disk - I will do that anon. Thank you all.
@Patsy1011
This may be thought of as dickering, but maybe not. Hear me out, then make your decision:
1. Re-contact HP and reactivate the issue with them
2. Inform them that you have sensitive information you don't want to lose on the drive in the machine.
3. Ask if you can pull and keep the current hard drive from the machine and replace it with a comparable drive.
a. If the drive is a Seagate 500 GB SSD, replace it with a Seagate . . .
b. You can find the hard drive (that's inside the computer) for your HP 24-DF1046 all-in-one on the HP site. Or, if you reactivate the issue, they will know which drive you have.
4. Worst case scenario, if they don't want you going inside the computer, ask if you can leave the hard drive inside, but send a replacement drive along with the computer so your files will stay intact.
a. If they agree, you can request that the extra hard drive you sent have Windows 11 installed on it and the original (intact hard drive) be used as a second drive for your files and folders.
5. HP is a reputable company and
will not look at or steal your files. The only thing they will do is wipe the hard drive; of course, you will then lose your files.
Good luck!