I'm sorry but are you trying to say that your phone was on 8.1 and after hard reset it's back to WP8?
I swear last time i read the first post it did not make any sense to me but reading it now and my comment looks dumb lolHe's saying its on 8.1, and it appears the hard key procedure for a hard reset has seemingly changed from 8.0.
Are you able to erase the phone from find my phone? Or does that require the pin?