Asus T100T no boot options

paddyirishman05 · 11 Feb 2024

I have an Asus T100TA tablet with Windows 10 installed. The admin password is forgotten so I decided to do a full OS reinstall.
Using a Windows Media Creation USB, I booted into the USB. I then used diskpart from the command line to clear the drives so I could get a completely clean install of the OS. I've done this with other laptops and usually gives me no problems.
In this case though, I then selected the unallocated space for installing the OS but got an error "windows cannot be installed in the selected location 0x80300001".

I then realised that this may be because the primary boot option was set to the USB stick. When I go back into the BIOS now, there are no boot options available at all (the boot menu is just empty) and I can't boot into anything other than the BIOS. There is another BIOS option of "Launch EFI Shell from filesystem device" which just gives an error "Not found".

I think I know the problem, or at least part of it:
Initially I couldn't boot into the USB and while troubleshooting, I set USB as default device. But only afterwards realised that I needed a 32bit USB and not 64bit. So I reformatted the USB and was able to load the media creation tool. I didn't revert the BIOS boot settings back to default.
Also when running diskpart and clearing the disk, it seems I also (stupidly) cleared the USB and potentially a system partition.
The error I got (0x80300001) might be related to the internal storage not being the primary boot device.
So went back into the BIOS and discovered there is no boot options. Set the BIOS settings (and after disabled secure boot) but still no boot options.

My USB is dead now. Another PC detects it but can't load anything from it. So I got another USB, formatted it with the Win Media Creation Tool and stuck it into the Asus T100T. It is not detected. I can only get into the BIOS and nothing else. No boot options available.

My problem now is figuring out how I can boot something on the device. Any suggestions? Or have I rendered this device redundant?

Megahertz · 11 Feb 2024

Why do you need a Win 10 32bits instead of a Win 10 64? How much memory does it has? 4G or less =32bits, more than 4G = 64bits

Win 10 32 bits can only be installed as Legacy-MBR and BIOS must be set accordingly.

I think you're trying to install as UEFI-GPT on a MBR drive or trying to install as Legacy-MBR on a GPT drive

Reset BIOS or load defaults.
Set Disk mode to AHCI, not RAID
Select OS mode = CSM
Disable fast boot and secure boot (you can turn it on after installation)

Windows can be installed in two ways: Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT
To install as Legacy-MBR you must boot the installation drive as Legacy
To install as UEFI-GPT you must boot the installation drive as UEFI.

Detach any other drives from the MB.

During POST, press F8(?) 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.

FreeBooter · 11 Feb 2024

Make sure to configure UEFI mode from BIOS and execute below commands.

Code:

Diskpart

list disk 

select disk 0

Clean

convert gpt

Exit

At the DISKPART prompt, enter select disk <disk-number>, where <disk-number> is the disk number to clean partitions and convert to GPT disk.

dalchina · 11 Feb 2024

This appears to be from around 2013, with 64GB storage and 2,948MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz RAM, originally with Win 8.1.

This video demonstrates how to boot from a USB installation disk for this model.
How to install Windows 10 on Asus T100TA Transformer - YouTube

Is this how you're doing it?

Megahertz · 11 Feb 2024

dalchina said:

This appears to be from around 2013, with 64GB storage and 2,948MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz RAM, originally with Win 8.1.

This video demonstrates how to boot from a USB installation disk for this model.
How to install Windows 10 on Asus T100TA Transformer - YouTube

Is this how you're doing it?

With only 3G of memory, Win 10 32bits is recommended. See my post above on how to install.

cereberus · 11 Feb 2024

These devices were unusual as they used 32bit uefi. They cannot run 64 bit. Your usb drive has to have 32bit windows.

dalchina · 11 Feb 2024

Megahertz said:

With only 3G of memory, Win 10 32bits is recommended. See my post above on how to install.

The actual method to get the boot menu displayed is shown clearly in the video.