I've only done a Clean install of Win10 on a blank drive, no partitions. I use GPARTED to completely clean the drives to get them back to their as-shipped condition. I've never had to make a choice, just let Windows partition and format as needed then deal whatever is left over [usually nothing]. An advantage to wiping a drive is to assure there's no 'nasty' such as a rootkit hanging around.
CSM is Compatibility Support Module in other words its Legacy bios settings on UEFI systems.(So that on newer hardware its possible for you to use MBR disks and older operating systrms .This is very basic what i can think of CSM.
Once you create usb via rufus (MBR + UEFI or BIOS + NTFS ) you can boot this drive in both the systems.If you select UEFI prefix in boot selection menu you will boot in UEFI or if you choose non uefi prefix drive,you will boot in Legacy/Bios mode.
In UEFI boot blank hdd will be automatically created as GPT .If disk is not blank you manually need to convert it to GPT from MBR.
Same with legacy boot,blank hdd will be converted to MBR automatically .Non empty disk needs to be converted manually from GPT to MBR if necessary.
Last edited by inwell; 25 Mar 2020 at 07:08.
My question applies to the instructions given in Option Four: Manually create Bootable Windows 10 USB for Legacy BIOS and UEFI in Command Prompt.
I have a USB flash drive that was last successfully used by the Media Creation Tool a few months ago to create a bootable Windows 10 flash drive. However, I don't want to use the Media Creation Tool this time to create bootable media. I plan to use the Media Creation Tool only to download the ISO and then mount the ISO and manually copy the files onto a flash drive.
My PC is UEFI boot only not Legacy boot. Do I have to go through all the Diskpart commands to prepare the USB flash drive again before mounting the ISO and copying the files onto the drive?
OR
Is it sufficient to just wipe this flash drive by performing a FAT32 format on it using file explorer so that the drive is empty rather than going through all the Diskpart commands again to prepare the drive? If so, after formatting the flash drive I could simply mount the ISO and copy the files onto the flash drive.
I am just wondering if the Media Creation Tool having created bootable media on the drive before could have done something to the USB flash drive at that time meaning that it has to be cleaned and prepared with Diskpart again?
Last edited by sportsfan148; 22 Apr 2020 at 04:32.
Hi there
easiest way -- absolutely no formatting etc required
1) download any Linux Distro and boot it
2) plug in the USB, open terminal / console and type : lsblk -- you'll see a list /dev/sdx of devices -- assume the USB is /dev/sdb
3) type sudo su to get into root mode on the live distro
4) now simply type the following : dd if=input_file_name_of_the -iso of=/dev/sdb bs=64M status=progress
probably take around 10 mins for a 4GB windows iso image depending on the quality of the USB stick and the computer
reboot with the USB device --- job done -- the dd command doesn't know or care about file systems or formatting --just copied physical data -- I find that far better than fiddling around with Diskpart commands, GPT/MBR things etc.
If you need to do it purely in Windows then rufus is the easiest tools - usually works OK but not always 100% of the time.
Cheers
jimbo
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