Booting Windows from Thumb Drive

nomoredroids · 31 Jan 2016

I'm still running Vista. I recently purchased a thumb drive with Windows 10 from Microsoft (only because they don't sell them on disc anymore, which is easy and I've done a clean install of Vista half a dozen times from CD-Rom).

Anyway, I plug in the thumb drive, I reboot, go to BIOS, set to boot from USB-HDD. Exit that, and a screen comes up with the device (my USB with Windows 10) at the top and Verifying DMI Pool way down at the bottom. But then nothing. It just hangs there. As far as I can tell, it will hang there forever (but at the very least an hour). I can't find a solution, and I've been at this for hours. Thank you in advance for any help, or even pointing me in the right direction.

ARC1020 · 31 Jan 2016

My Vista machine never used to install Windows from USB stick either, so I stuck to burning an ISO to DVD. I assume you want to clean install this time too. If you don't need to access the bit that allows you to add/remove partitions and format the drive before installing Windows, you could try running setup.exe on the thumbdrive from the Vista desktop and follow the on-screen instructions, which should give the option to keep nothing and install Windows.

Alternatively, you can burn a Windows 10 ISO to DVD using the Windows Media Creation Tool (see Option Two at the link below) and then boot from DVD to install Windows 10. Just use the licence key that came with the Windows 10 thumbdrive you bought to activate it.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/9...-download.html

Then:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1...n-install.html

You'll may need to install Windows 8.1 graphics card drivers if there aren't any available for Windows 10 and they don't automatically install through Windows Update.

nomoredroids · 31 Jan 2016

I unfortunately do want partitions. And anyway, running setup doesn't work.

I also don't have a DVD burner, so nix idea 2, as well. Ideally I'd figure out why this stupid thumb drive doesn't work because it seems like it should.

The clean install tutorial doesn't seem particularly helpful, or it could be that I'm not understanding what you want me to see; I'm at Step 3 and cannot get Windows to boot from USB. Currently I'm selecting USB-HDD in BIOS, which seems to be reading my thumbdrive, but then it fails at "Verifying DMI Pool."

Digital Life · 31 Jan 2016

You did not specify what type of computer you are running does it meet the minimum requirements

Minimum specs

Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster
RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
Free hard disk space: 16 GB
Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver
A Microsoft account and Internet access

Caveats

Beyond the speed of processor, you will also need a 32-bit or 64-bit CPU that supports three different processor features - PAE, SSE2 and NX. Windows 8.1 also requires support for these, so if your machine runs Windows 8.1, chances are it'll run Windows 10

Source: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/...ow-can-you-go/

Testing

So, how can you tell if your processor supports all of this? There are a few ways:

Download and run the Windows 8/8.1 Upgrade Assistant. If your hardware is not up to spec, it'll tell you, saving you gigabytes of downloads.
Download and run a handy utility called CPU-Z. Look under Instructions and if you see SSE2, EM64T (indicates the processor has support for PAE) and either VT-d or VT-x

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows...our-pc-run-it/

nomoredroids · 31 Jan 2016

Yeah, I exceed all the specs by a wide margin. Except for:

Download and run a handy utility called CPU-Z. Look under Instructions and if you see SSE2, EM64T (indicates the processor has support for PAE) and either VT-d or VT-x

On that, not so much. I'm seeing SSE2, but not the other two things. I'm not sure what this means (yet), but thanks for making me look at the obvious. And thanks for giving me the workarounds, ARC. Any other info?

whs · 31 Jan 2016

Set it to Lagcy Mode in the BIOS and disable Secure Boot. Also have a look here:

What You Need to Know About Using UEFI Instead of the BIOS

tracit99 · 31 Jan 2016

Strange that you Windows Thumb drive will not boot. There is a procedure that will allow you to create an ISO on your hard drive from a bootable USB drive. From there you would mount the ISO file and run setup from there.

https://forums.hak5.org/index.php?/t...o/#entry163514

Digital Life · 31 Jan 2016

whs said:

Set it to Lagcy Mode in the BIOS and disable Secure Boot. Also have a look here:

What You Need to Know About Using UEFI Instead of the BIOS

Would a computer that is running Vista have UEFI enabled ?

nomoredroids · 01 Feb 2016

whs said:

Set it to Lagcy Mode in the BIOS and disable Secure Boot. Also have a look here:

What You Need to Know About Using UEFI Instead of the BIOS

I have Vista, and my computer's motherboard is old enough that Vista was the current version of Windows when I got it. As far as I can tell, Secure Boot isn't even an option as that requires UEFI, right? I'm still stuck using BIOS, and, in fact, was unaware of UEFI at all. From my limited knowledge and the reading material I've been given on this forum (thank you, all), it appears that I'm going to need to update the motherboard and probably the processor in order to run Windows 10. Can anyone confirm? Or give me other options if I'm not quite understanding?

Berton · 01 Feb 2016

nomoredroids said:

I have Vista, and my computer's motherboard is old enough that Vista was the current version of Windows when I got it. As far as I can tell, Secure Boot isn't even an option as that requires UEFI, right? I'm still stuck using BIOS, and, in fact, was unaware of UEFI at all. From my limited knowledge and the reading material I've been given on this forum (thank you, all), it appears that I'm going to need to update the motherboard and probably the processor in order to run Windows 10. Can anyone confirm? Or give me other options if I'm not quite understanding?

It's my understanding that UEFI was introduced with Win8/8.1 and some features are for 64-bit only. I've done a number of Upgrades to Win10 but always from Win7 w/SP1 or Win8.1, both 32-bit and 64-bit. I have managed Upgrades on Vista machines but only by going to Win7 w/SP 1 first, haven't needed to do a clean install on a Vista or WinXP drive or a bare drive.