HP Laptop Refuses to Boot to USB  

I have wasted the best part of a day searching for a solution.
My ancient mother has a new HP laptop, thin as a rail and with no DVD drive; Windows 10.
If it has a model name, I cannot find it.
She has set it up herself and now has no idea what her password is; neither she nor I can get past the password screen.

I have a known-good Sandisk flash-drive that has a bootable Linux-based password eliminating program.
I have used this USB stick countless times to clear passwords and it has always worked --- until now.

By pressing F10 on Startup, I get BIOS Setup Utility; in this screen, I made sure USB boot was enabled, disabled Secure Boot, and moved USB/Flash Drive to the top of the boot order.

There is no option to enable Legacy Boot anywhere that I can find; no mention of it at all.

Pressing Esc on Startup gets a list "Start Menu"; choosing F9 there gets Boot Manager/Boot Option Menu where I have two choices, default OS UEFI boot and Boot from EFI File.

Choosing "Boot from EFI File" takes me to "File Explorer" with two options; the top option "No Volume Label -- etc. etc. USB etc. etc."; the second option "System -- etc. etc. SATA etc. etc."

Choosing the top option "No Volume Label" takes me to four choices:

<Sandisk Secure Access>
<InternetAdapterDriver>
<Z__This May Be USB Password Cracker> (That is exactly what it says)
<SystemVolumeInformation>

Regardless of which option I select, it takes me to two choices:

<.>
<..>

Selecting the first option does absolutely nothing.
Selecting the second option simply returns me to the four choices.

Other that "Enter", my only other option is to press "ESC"; pressing "ESC" at any point returns me to the Boot Option Menu with the default O/S highlighted.

I have tried my best to not omit anything that I am seeing; try and try and try again and it always just boots back to the password screen.

I will repeat, the USB stick that I am using has worked numerous times on other laptops and has always obliterated all passwords and allowed access to otherwise useless machines.
It may be a regional thing, but there are countless laptops among my friends and relatives that have forgotten passwords; I always set them up to boot straight into the desktop with no passwords at all; it saves a lot of grief later.

Thanks for reading and all help is appreciated.

Can anyone please tell me what I am missing ?

I am about ready to lay this thing under the rear tandems and run the truck back and forth over it a few times.

spunk said:

In the Bios under Security, you would choose Legacy Support Enabled, Secure Boot Disabled (see attached) Save and Exit. You now should be able to boot from an MBR Flash drive.

How did you get to the screen you pictured ? I have not been able to find anything that looks like it.

I highly doubt that she used a Microsoft account to set it up.
I have preached and preached to her to NEVER create a password ..... alas.....

I tried another backdoor approach that has worked for me in the past = changing the Ease of Access button to instead turn on Command Prompt outside of Windows and allow manipulations from there; however, on this particular machine, it demands her password to access Command Prompt, thus negating the whole reason for doing so in the first place.
In that event, my instructions say to boot to Hirens to get over that hurdle --- which I cannot do on account of it won't boot to USB.

As things are, she has an expensive shiny red doorstop.

By some slim miracle, she may be able to guess her security questions --- but I am not getting my hopes up.

If I opt to reinstall Windows, will that put her back to beginning with no passwords ?
At this point, I am not worried about losing files because they are lost anyway if we can't get into the thing.

Bree said:

No, you won't - not on a new machine. On a 2021 machine CSM/Legacy support is no longer available.....

That figures .....

If I am reading correctly, this is a motherboard thing and not so much an O/S thing; right ?

As frustrating as this laptop is, it is nowhere near as frustrating and nerve-wracking as dealing with my mother.
I am fixing to call her and see if she can hit on the correct answers to the three security questions --- and when and where she may have used upper or lower case.

I hope she has not enlisted her password through her iPhone that she recently let service expire; she no longer has mobile phone service, but she does have land-line.

Bree said:

Yes. For the past year or so Legacy CSM options are no longer included in the UEFI bios on new machines.




You have my sympathy. You should be able to boot to Advanced Start up and Reset Windows at boot without being asked for a password. That will start the OoBE setup all over again. Make sure you do NOT connect to the internet and you will be able to set it up with an offline local account this time.

See Option One: Reset Windows 10

Thanks !

After a conversation with mother, contrary to the way things usually go when dealing with her, she provided correct answers to all three security questions; and, after several false starts, I managed to -first- get in with a very simple new password and -second- remove the password from her account.

Once I was in, I also created myself an emergency administrator account with a very simple easy-to-remember password identical to the username and entered the exact same text for all three security questions; in her next emergency, I should be able to get in via that account.

Now, I am going to set it up to start straight into her user account with no password screen (I already set it to "Never" require a password after going to sleep).

If she hadn't been able to come up with answers to the security questions, my next move was going to be to Reset Windows and start all over.