PC does not start from Windows 10 USB

I am trying to reinstall Windows 10 on an Asus X556LJ laptop, having replaced its failing HDD with a new, empty SSD drive. The laptop originally had Windows 10 preinstalled on it and I believe its motherboard contains Win10 key.

To achieve this I downloaded Windows 10 image from the official MS website and wrote it on a USB thumb using another laptop with Linux Mint (sadly, I have no other Windows PCs).

However, to my surprise, I am unable to boot the laptop in question with the said USB. It is not even listed in BIOS as a boot option!

I tried making sure if this laptop is capable of booting USBs at all, and the answer seems to be yes: it could boot from a Linux Mint LiveUSB. I also tried making sure if the Windows10 USB thumb is not faulty: I plugged it to this other Linux Mint laptop that had never had Windows10 installed and the USB was listed in the laptop's BIOS as a boot option, though booting into it deferred to HDD (I assume Windows security measures took off).

I should note this is the second time I'm trying to reinstall Windows10 on this computer due to failing HDD. The previous time I had the servicemen replace the HDD for me and afterwards I was successful in reinstalling Windows10; however, while I'm not certain, I have vague memories of failing to use USB that time as well and having to resort to DVDs.

gaazkam

Posted 2019-01-07T17:27:13.497

Reputation: 583

How are you determining that a hard drive has failed? – Eric F – 2019-01-07T17:32:40.803

@EricF (1) Weird noises from the HDD; (2) Severe lags from the computer during these noises; (3) Applications suddenly reporting corrupted installations at the same time; (4) SMART reporting 48 reallocated sectors one day and 72 reallocated sectors the next day. – gaazkam – 2019-01-07T17:35:20.637

Is your question about the failing harddrive or about your laptop not booting from usb? – Eric F – 2019-01-07T17:44:03.963

@EricF The second problem. I only mentioned the failing HDD to give some context which might or might not matter. – gaazkam – 2019-01-07T17:48:32.553

If your bios does not support booting by USB as you stated, then you can't do so in which case you need to boot from CD / DVD – Eric F – 2019-01-07T17:50:28.227

@EricF Did I state my BIOS did not support booting from USB? On the contrary, as I said I tried booting from Linux Mint LiveUSB just to check that and it booted fine. Windows10, on the other hand, won't boot and I don't understand why – gaazkam – 2019-01-07T17:53:26.790

Make the usb drive again using the Microsoft utility.. – Moab – 2019-01-07T20:11:33.767

@Moab Very sadly, as I said already, the laptop in question is the only PC I have with Windows installed. – gaazkam – 2019-01-07T20:47:13.750

this might seem a little odd but could you download the iso off of the same download site - presumably off mint, which will give you the ISO, then generate a boot USB using rufus? It would help rule out the MS installer generator, which I've personally not had good luck with. – Journeyman Geek – 2019-01-08T01:48:06.600

@JourneymanGeek I'm sorry but I have trouble understanding what you mean? How can I "download the ISO off mint"? I did use Linux Mint to download the ISO, though I don't know how can I use Rufus and I did not use MS installer generator. I do not have access to any other Windows PC other than the one I'm trying to reinstall Windows on at the moment. – gaazkam – 2019-01-08T02:06:28.670

@JourneymanGeek I'm now considering opening the laptop once again, giving it the old failing HDD, trying to boot to Windows from there, downloading Rufus or MS official tool, creating USB, replacing HDD once again, trying to use this USB... Tomorrow though, its night already for me :) – gaazkam – 2019-01-08T02:22:54.693

Answers

There are a few possibilities, but I'll tackle it...

Is Secure Boot enabled in the UEFI (BIOS)? I turn it off when I go to install Windows 10, and turn it back on after.
What did you use to write the image? I use Unetbootin (no affiliation) to write my images.
Is your computer trying to boot up in MBR / CSM / BIOS mode, or GPT / UEFI mode? Did you write the image for the correct method? (instructions on other questions)
What does the boot order look like in the BIOS / UEFI setup?
Have you tried another USB port on the computer?

Canadian Luke

Posted 2019-01-07T17:27:13.497

Reputation: 22 162

Thank you for your answer. (1) Secure Boot is enabled and I don't know how to disable it, since this option is greyed out. (2) I used USB Image Writer bundled with Linux Mint Cinnamon. (3) I believe it is UEFI though, when I'm looking through Setup settings right now, I can't find such an option. It is mentioned though that Secure Boot can only be enabled if CSM is disabled. I did not know I had to write the image for the correct method. (4) Nothing is listed if only Win10 USB is plugged in. Only Mint USB is listed if it is plugged in. (5) Yes, but to no avail. – gaazkam – 2019-01-08T02:02:04.510

OK I'm now reading this answer: https://superuser.com/questions/1170832/why-are-there-different-options-for-creating-bootable-usb-compared-to-a-cd I must say I'm surprised with this stuff. I don't remember Linux Mint USB Image Writer providing any of these options. I'm now considering opening the laptop once again, giving it the old failing HDD, trying to boot to Windows from there, downloading Rufus or MS official tool, creating USB, replacing HDD once again, trying to use this USB... Tomorrow though, its night already for me :)

– gaazkam – 2019-01-08T02:22:40.570

Oh wait, I can use UNetbootin on Linux? OK I'll give it a try, thank you for your recommendation, maybe I'll have more luck with this – gaazkam – 2019-01-08T02:25:19.587

Good luck! Let us know if that works or not – Canadian Luke – 2019-01-08T17:53:59.073

I wrote Windows ISO on USB on Linux with Unetbootin as per this answer and it did boot! That's a considerable success. The installation, however, failed, because of the problem mentioned in this question, and the answer to this question was not working for me.

– gaazkam – 2019-01-08T21:23:15.277

Out of my patience I simply dd'd the failing HDD onto the new SSD. WOW! It worked! The laptop's working again! I hope the old HDD didn't corrupt the data too much. Out of curiosity, from Windows I tried making Win installation USB with the help of the official Microsoft tool - but it failed for unspecified reasons. I then only created an ISO with official Microsoft tool and wrote it to USB using Rufus. This was a success. I then tried starting the installation process to see if the missing drivers problem resurfaces but it did not. – gaazkam – 2019-01-08T21:27:44.853

After all, however, I did not do a fresh reinstall. I thought I had already wasted too much time on this. Since disk cloning worked... I only hope the old HDD did not corrupt too much data. – gaazkam – 2019-01-08T21:28:34.907

To be fair, the original question was "How do I get Windows 10 Install to boot"... – Canadian Luke – 2019-01-08T21:29:20.060

Sure enough :). – gaazkam – 2019-01-08T21:29:46.977

Since years ago, the usual/traditional tools available in Linux do not work for making a bootable USB with the new Microsoft ISOs.

The only tool that works (dd with an additional step) is MKUSB. The reason for that is discussed here. Here's a quote of the relevant part:

It was not possible to extract the content from the Windows iso file directly to a USB pendrive. The files were not copied correctly (with any of the standard copying tools: cp, rsync, dd) in Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS (the current Ubuntu version, when this feature was added to mkusb-nox). But it works in a reliable way to extract to a tarfile, and then extract from the tarfile to the USB pendrive.

Use the "extracting Windows Installer" as described here.

user931000

Posted 2019-01-07T17:27:13.497

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