Reload Windows 10 Pro, need product ID? -> No record of it...

56Kruiser said:

Yeah. It seems wierd. I've done this in the past, albeit quite a while aback.

I keep wondering if I am selecting wrong thing to load with, ie. HDD, USBFDD, USBHDD, etc. None work.

On one old computer with a Gigabyte motherboard I had to first select Hard Disk to navigate to the Sandisk USB flash drive.

@MisterEd thanks.

So, I have determined that the PC is not recognizing the drive at all, unless I go ahead and boot into Windows, then it sees it fine.

I wonder if the problems are due to the technology that is likely new compared to when this PC's components were made. I've tried with a flash drive, and now with an SDD drive.

Going to search around and see if I can find one and try that.

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Well, I thought I had an old 2 1/2" disk left over from an upgrade to SSD. I must have tossed it.

I did just try booting from the SSD with the Windows image on the laptop I'm on now, and it booted up to install Windows fine.

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Getting the invalid partition message, I got to wondering if I had a GPD partition, but it needs to be a MBR. So I totally cleaned the drive, and went through the process to create a MBR...altlhough I have to say that while the command lines indicated success, I didn't see anything in the Manage Disks utility other than an unformatted drive. So I fornatted it with exFat, and again applied the boot stuff from the Media Creation Tool.

And of course, it made no difference.

I thought about trying the DVD angle suggested a bit ago, but I suspect it would require a different DVD writer than I have, and of course purchase of 2 layer DVDs.

I may have to give up on this.

@AddRAM, I appreciate your input.
My first attempt was with a USB stick, and it failed with the invalid partition. I believe that UEFI is not a feature on this older PC. Not mentioned anywhere at boot or in BIOS.

Someone earlier suggested that I post pics of the boot screens. I'm finally getting to that.
1. At initial boot, and I select F12:



2. This is the boot up screen after selecting F12. From this screen if I select Hard Disk:



It then presents with this screen listing the drives to select from:



The drive with the Windows files created with the tool is not listed. NOTE again...if I boot up my laptop that I'm on now, the drive is listed, I can select it, and it boots into Windows ready for me to install. So, for whatever reason, this older PC is not seeing the install drive. The drive I'm using is an 2.5" SDD drive mounted in a case for it and a USB cable.

If I select USB-HDD as seen below:



I get the Invalid Partition error:

What USB port is the flash drive plugged into? It should be plugged into a black USB directly off the motherboard in the back of the computer.

Since you can boot into Windows, another option would be to create an 8 GB NTFS partition on an internal hard drive, extract a Windows installation ISO file to the new partition - or copy the files and folders from the USB flash drive to the new partition, add the new partition to the Windows boot menu, then boot the computer into the new partition and you can get into setup that way.

@NavyLCDR, Thanks! That's an excellent suggestion, and I have the drives in there to do that.

I have tried USB on the back, 2-3 different ones. It's really wierd.

"Something" is broken, it seems to me. The whole reason for wanting to do the load in the first place is because Windows updates will no longer apply.

I'll post back how that goes.

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@NavyLCDR...you mention adding the new drive to the boot menu. I've never known about that option.

I wonder if I add the USB drive to the boot menu. I presume I would need to have it connected while I do that.

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Well of course I am stuck...

I copied the files from the SD drive into the 8GB partition on another drive. It shows up as D: in the file explorer. Files are at root, no Windows directory. That was the way that the Windows Creation Tool did it.

So, I found info on Microsoft's site about using BCDEdit to add to the Bootloader. It says to copy the existing one and then edit that. But, while the article speaks about editing the file, it goes down the path about commands to change the order of the drives presented. But no information on how to edit it. So, the second one points to same place as the first one.

I did a search and went down 3-4 rabbit holes, never to find how to edit it. This what is in the bootloader file:



Now, the directory created doesn't even match anything at all, no Windows dir, no Winload.exe file...I'm not sure what I got here or how to get it to be an option to boot at this point. Below is the top level directory create by the Windows Creation Tool:



Suggestions?

@Try3...The two folders you mention are related to a ransomware app Cyberreason that writes those out there. Theyare text files just contain garbage.

My big issue right now is how the heck to edit the boot loader to correct the path to the other drive in the computer that I want to boot to.