Can't boot to USB ASUS laptop, despite following recommendations

My sons ASUS laptop stopped booting correctly. It gets to the ASUS screen and stays there. Sometimes it comes up with the ASUS recovery message 'preparing automatic repair'. It eventually comes up with error 0xc0000185, saying I need to use recovery tools.

Gives me an option to Enter and try again (nothing), try UEFI boot (freezes)

Some more background:

So I'm trying to reinstall windows, assuming something is wrong with the boot files.

- I followed the full guide here Access Denied to install windows 10 onto Rufus and GPT
- switched off fast boot, switched off CMS
- My boot screens look the same as on here

Despite all of this, I can't get the boot to pick up the USB. On the rare occasion I can actually get the boot screen up, the USB is never there.

- I've tried to add a USB device in the boot options, pick the config file, but still the USB doesn't get listed.

Any other ideas? It's under warranty so I guess I can RMA is to ASUS, but I'd prefer to fix it if I can.

What type of USB flash drive are you using? Plain, USB 2.0 name brand flash drives seem to work best. I like SanDisk. 4 GB will work, but 8 GB to 32 GB will give you a little wiggle room and you can store drivers or data files on them too.

If the laptop has both blue USB 3.0 ports and black USB 2.0 ports, use the black USB 2.0 ports. We seem to have better luck all around with USB 2.0 than 3.0.

Finally, your USB flash drive is probably set up wrong. If you don't set the all the options exactly the correct way, and set them in the exactly correct order in Rufus you are likely to get a USB flash drive that won't do what you want it to do. I won't recommend that anyone use Rufus. Here is a much more reliable way to make a USB flash drive bootable in both a UEFI and a legacy BIOS computer:

Prepare the flash drive to be bootable in both a UEFI and a legacy BIOS computer as follows:
Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive

At step 9 make sure to use the FAT32 file system (read the important box below the step):
9. To format the partition as FAT32, type format fs=fat32 quick, and then click ENTER

Don't worry about step 12 - we'll get to that in a minute.

Next you need the Windows 10 ISO file. If you already download the just plain Windows 10 ISO file you can use what you have downloaded. You want just plain Windows 10 64-bit. Not Single Language Edition, not N Edition, just plain Windows 10 from here:
Microsoft Windows 10 ISO Download

Once you have the Windows 10 ISO file you need to mount it. In Windows 8 or 10 you just need to right click on it and select mount. In Windows 7 you need a program to mount it. WinCDEmu is a program you can use to mount it in Windows 7:
WinCDEmu - the easiest way to mount an ISO. And more...

Once you mount the ISO file, it should open with it's own drive letter, a virtual DVD. Copy all the files and folders from the new drive letter to the USB flash drive you just prepared. This is performing step 12 of that procedure. You now have a USB flash drive that you can boot your computer from and install Windows 10 with.

EDIT OK finally it moved somewhere! I got the USB menu up (I had to ENABLE CMS, not disable it).

I clicked on the USB to boot from there, and now just a black screen. No windows install screen Now after 5 minutes it just had a flashing cursor at the top right of the screen. Then it moved to say 'Reboot and select proper boot device' or Insert boot media i selected boot device and press a key.

I followed the installation instructions to the letter

Hi,

I added the USB into the boot menu (it does appear in BIOS, so I know the PC sees it). But still not coming up in the boot menu

Which quite likely means that media is still not bootable.

That device is UEFI capable and set to that in BIOS, correct ?
The USB stick is FAT32 formatted ? If so then mount the iso file and select all files and copy/paste them to the USB stick. It should boot.

Cheers,

fdegrove said:

Hi,



Which quite likely means that media is still not bootable.
That device is UEFI capable and set to that in BIOS, correct ?
The USB stick is FAT32 formatted ? If so then mount the iso file and select all files and copy/paste them to the USB stick. It should boot.
Cheers,

Yeah, fat32 for sure.
How do I know its UEFI capable? Do I still manually have to add it in the BIOS as a different boot item (I actually didn't this time round and it picked it up)

This is the USB I'm using

In Windows 10, press the Windows key + X and select disk management. With the USB flash drive inserted, it should show as a FAT32 partition. Mine is Disk 2, drive letter H:



On the USB flash drive you should see files and folders like this:



In the computer's UEFI, under the Save & Exit screen, there should be a Boot Override menu. With the USB flash drive inserted, it should show up in this menu and this is where you would want to select it to boot the computer from:

This is the type of flash drive I would (and do) use:
Lexar® JumpDrive® TwistTurn USB 2.0 Flash Drive

Hi,

How do I know its UEFI capable? Do I still manually have to add it in the BIOS as a different boot item (I actually didn't this time round and it picked it up)

This is the USB I'm using

From earlier posts I understand your son's machine is UEFI capable and set up in BIOS/UEFI as such. You should not have to add the USB stick to the boot options, UEFI should do that for you provided that media is indeed bootable under UEFI settings.

You may want to disable secure boot in UEFI although it should work regardless really.

The ADATA stick seems fine to me.

Cheers,

Thanks both for the details replies!

So, everything works OK APART from seeing a UEFI option. All I see is:

Bootoverride
PO: ST1000LM035 - I assume the physical hard drive
Windows Boot Manager (PO: ST1000ML035) the window image that's broken

Underneath I see
Launch EFI Shell from filesystem device

I tried to launch that but nothing happens.

I even tried an old USB drive and no difference. Neither of them pull up the UEFI.
I even downloaded a fresh windows 10 install.

Slightly random - but I don't remember if its windows 32 or 64 installed. Would this make a difference? I have both ISOs installed so can try.