BIOS loophole, can't fresh install Windows 10 on a new system

This a new system and I can't install Windows 10.
The system boots in the BIOS, I set the date and the first boot as an external USB drive but I can't load the drive with Windows 10 and I'm back in the BIOS (UEFI).
I successfully installed Windows 10 on an older computer with the same drive I prepared with Rufus compatible with UEFI.
This is very weird and I never had this problem before, nothing is attached other than a SSD Samsung NVMe M.2 drive and the external USB disk.

I can't yet give you a definitive answer, but hopefully we can get there with a little bit more information.

First, if you look at that USB drive on another system, can you tell me if it is formatted as FAT32, NTFS, or does have one partition of each type?

Second, I know that you said that this is a new system, so I assume that it is not the system listed in your profile. If it is a home built system, could you please provide the make and model of the motherboard? If a fully assembled PC, could you provide the make and model?

That's just a starting point. I may yet ask for more info .

Oh, one more thing: Have you tried other USB ports? Some systems are picky and will not boot from some ports.

EDIT: You may find some of my questions odd, especially since that same drive boots on another system, but not that some systems will boot from media prepared in a manner that another system may not boot from.

Thanks for the help.

hsehestedt said:

First, if you look at that USB drive on another system, can you tell me if it is formatted as FAT32, NTFS, or does have one partition of each type?

NTFS, single partition, it loads as a USB device on another computer, only folders and files, Windows 10 downloaded from Microsoft and prepared with Rufus.

If it is a home built system, could you please provide the make and model of the motherboard?

Motherboard MSI MAG Z790, the BIOS shows as 2023.

Have you tried other USB ports? Some systems are picky and will not boot from some ports.

I tried a port on the motherboard and another from the case, all USB3 ports
I'm suspecting that Windows cannot load because this motherboard only has USB3 ports?
I even reverted the BIOS to default and set the USB drive as a top again but it didn't work.

cereberus said:

On some pcs, you cannot boot from an external nvme drive unless the IRST driver is available at boot time.

I forgot to mention what drive I used but it's a SSD one (non NVMe) and with the same drive I installed Windows on another computer.
The NVMe one is installed on the motherboard which will be the OS drive.
But I remember that on the older system Rufus popped out a message saying that the drive is formatted for UEFI so I adjusted the BIOS settings and everything went fine.
Again during installation Windows complained about the UEFI thing so I deleted the partitions and I installed it.

Megahertz said:

During POST, press F12(?) to launch the boot menu. You will see two options for the USB drive. USB UEFI (Name) and USB (Name). Select USB UEFI (Name) if you want to install as UEFI-GPT or select USB (name) if you want to install as Legacy-MBR.
Go to install and delete ALL partitions on the main drive till you have one and only one unallocated space and then proceed.
If you don't want to use MS account, don't enable updates or connect to the internet during installation.

Thanks very much for the valuable technical information and for the tips.
I wasn't ready to work on the computer because I was out doing some stuff.
In the mean time, I played with my phone and I found the information that confirms your suggestion.
Here is the link: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...9-c9db3c01e0f3
Anyways, booting and installing Windows was not a one click action or following an obvious path so I had to use some other steps like deleting the drive, formatting.
After finally the files were copied, the system was in a loophole restarting and copying the files again and again, I didn't realize that I had to unplug the USB drive with Windows.
I didn't experience this issue with the older system but I recalled the glorious past when I was dealing with Windows XP and Seven LOL

If you are still having difficulty booting your Windows USB Flash Drive (UFD) try the manual procedure below.

I GURANTEE that this method works on any system regardless of whether it is UEFI or legacy BIOS. The only exception would be if there is a hardware limitation, a BIOS setting issue, or bad UFD.


IMPORTANT: This procedure will also work with a HDD or SSD as the target. Just be aware that the maximum size of an MBR disk is 2 TB. If you need to install Windows from a drive larger than 2TB, let me know and I will tell you how.

There are some circumstances, such as when a flash drive was configured for GPT, where the media creation tool may not yield a working UFD. I like this procedure because I have NEVER seen this not work. You will be able to boot it on any system whether that system is BIOS based or UEFI based. In addition, there is no issue with having files that are greater than 4GB in size. I just keep this procedure handy in case I have any difficulties with any other method of creating the boot disk.

1) Begin by having your Windows ISO image available. Double-click that file. That should "mount" the ISO image. This means that the ISO image is opened and assigned a drive letter, much like inserting a DVD in a drive. Take note of the drive letter that File Explorer shows for the mounted image.

2) Plug in your UFD if it is not already plugged in.

3) Press WinLogoKey + R, type in "diskpart" (without the quotes), press <ENTER>.

4) From the DISKPART> prompt, run this command:

list disk

5) From the size of the disks, try to determine which disk your UFD is and note the drive number. If that is not enough information, run these commands to get more detail on any disk. In this example, I want more info on disk 4:

select disk 4
detail disk

Repeat the above two commands for any other drives for which you want more detailed information.

Here is some sample output:

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 476 GB 0 B *
Disk 1 Online 3726 GB 0 B *
Disk 2 Online 465 GB 1024 KB *
Disk 3 Online 7452 GB 0 B *
Disk 4 Online 238 GB 0 B

DISKPART> select disk 4

Disk 4 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> detail disk

SanDisk Extreme Pro USB Device
Disk ID: DC727760
Type : USB
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : UNAVAILABLE
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 7 Z My Software NTFS Removable 238 GB Healthy
C:\MountPoints\My Software\

6) When you determine the correct disk, run the commands below while you are still in diskpart. In this example, I have determined that disk 4 is my UFD. Be sure to select the correct disk number because everything on that disk will be erased! STOP if you are unsure and run the EXIT command to quit Diskpart, then do not follow any further steps below.

NOTE: It's possible that after you run the "clean" command below you may get an error. If that happens, simply run "clean" again. It should succeed the second time. Technically, everything should be okay even with the error (it seems to be a reporting error only), but I like to play it safe and make sure I don't continue until the command works without an error.

select disk 4
clean
convert mbr
create partition primary size=1024
active
format fs=fat32 quick label="VOL1"
assign
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs quick label="VOL2"
assign
exit

NOTE: The assign commands will assign the next available drive letter. If you want to assign a specific drives letter, for example E:, use the command "assign letter=E" rather than just "assign" by itself. Please also note that we are assigning the label "VOL1" to the first partition, and "VOL2" to the second partition. The only reason we are doing this is to make these partitions easy to identify when you look at them in File Explorer. You can use any label you like. Just be aware that you are limited to 11 characters for FAT32 (the first partition) and 32 characters for NTFS (the second partition).

In the next step, we will copy files from the source to the UFD. To be clear, all the files and folders that you are being asked to copy come from your ISO image that you mounted in step 1. You are copying them to either the FAT32 partition (the one labeled "VOL1") or to the NTFS partition (the one labeled "VOL2") on your UFD.

7) Follow these steps to copy files to your UFD:

⦁ Copy all files and folders EXCEPT the \sources folder to the FAT32 partition.

⦁ Create a folder called sources on both the FAT32 partition AND the NTFS partition.

⦁ Copy the file \sources\boot.wim to the FAT32 partition \sources folder.

⦁ Copy all files and folders from the \sources folder EXCEPT boot.wim to the \sources folder on the NTFS partition.

At this point, you should have a bootable UFD that can be booted from both BIOS and UEFI based systems.

8) To finish, in File Explorer, right click the drive letter for the ISO image that you mounted in step 1 and choose "Eject". This will unmount the image, much like ejecting a DVD from its drive.

9) OPTIONAL STEP (but recommended): If you purchase a system that shipped with Windows, the BIOS will usually contain a signature that indicates what edition of Windows that system shipped with. During Windows setup, if setup sees such a signature, it will install that same edition of Windows without asking you what edition to install even if your Windows install media has multiple editions of Windows. This makes one less decision for the user to make during installation, especially since many users may not even know what edition of Windows was originally installed on the system. However, let's say that your system shipped with Home edition but you later upgraded to Pro. In that case you may want to be able to choose to install the Pro edition rather than just have Windows choose the edition automatically. To do this, you can create a simple text file with two lines and drop that file into the \sources folder on the NTFS partition. Personally, I like to always create this file as it allows for greater flexibility since you will then always have a choice of what Windows edition to install.

To create the file, open Notepad and type in the following two lines of text:

[Channel]
Retail

Save the file and name it "ei.cfg". Make certain that it does NOT have a .txt file extension.

Finally, simply drop that file into the \sources folder on the NTFS partition.

10) Cleanup: You can dismount your ISO image file now that we are done with it. Locate the drive letter that you Windows Image was mounted to in File Explorer. Right-click that drive and select "Eject".

END OF PROCEDURE

PLEASE NOTE: When booting the UFD that you have created, on some UEFI based systems, you may be presented with an option to boot either the FAT32 or the NTFS partition. Choose the FAT32 partition. The boot menu may not tell you which partition is FAT32 and which is NTFS. The FAT32 partition will typically be the first option for that drive in the menu.

Megahertz said:

Did you succeed installing Win 10?

Yes and thanks for the help.
As I said I installed the same media on another older computer and Rufus told me that I had to change the UEFI settings in the BIOS so since I didn't get this information and the drive didn't load, I just had no clue on what was happening.

hsehestedt said:

If you are still having difficulty booting your Windows USB Flash Drive (UFD) try the manual procedure below.

I'll save this information to use in case changing the settings in the BIOS fails.