Windows 10: ASUS Zenbook refuses to load Windows installer via USB

Hello! I've read a whole boatload of posts here, and tried a lot, but hit a wall with trying to help out a friend's software-janked but seemingly hardware-fine laptop. I'd like some outside opinions, just to know I'm not missing something.

The basic facts:

• The laptop is an ASUS ZenBook UX330UA
• The laptop would not boot into Windows 10 Home. An ASUS logo appears, the dots spin in a circle, but ultimately nothing happens after 5-10 minutes.
• Upon using a Windows Recovery USB and selecting that to , I would receive the blue-screen message that the BCD was busted, and that I should use Windows Recovery to fix it
• There is seemingly a recovery partition present on the SSD, but I cannot access it. I have tried F8, F9, getting there from BIOS, pressing Esc and looking for it in the list, but BIOS doesn't seem to know about it

What I want to do is boot up Windows installation somehow, get to the Repair/Troubleshooting tools, and run the BCD operations on this SSD that I've done with other friends' computers.

The big problem is that this ZenBook refuses to play nice with any USB stick, in any configuration I've tried. I've also tried burning a Windows 8 DVD (and Kyhi's Recovery Tools!) and trying to boot with an external USB optical drive, but the same result occurs: Initial drive activity/access, then the laptop shows spinning dots for a minute or two, then nothing.

I've read NavyLCDR's advice on making a bootable USB: Use Diskpart, make it MBR table, Fat 32 format, Active partition, copy over the Windows ISO files. I've done that with two different ISOs of Win 10, the March 2019 and the October 2018 versions.

The maddening thing is that an Ubuntu 18.04 LTS stick boots up perfectly fine, both in UEFI and legacy mode.

Here's what else I have tried, to the same results (except where noted):

• Turning off Fastboot in BIOS. Turning off Secure Boot. Enabling CRS (CRM?). Changing the boot order in BIOS. Using "Boot Override" in BIOS.
• Using Windows Media Creator on a variety of USB sticks (SanDisk 3.0 16 GB, SanDisk 3.0 32 GB, hand-out USB 2 8GB sticks, a 64 GB Lexar drive) to create a Windows 10 installer.
• Using Rufus to make a GPT/UEFI installer from the Win 10 ISO.
• Using Diskpart to make the forum-recommended MBR/Fat32/Active USB stick. One difference here: instead of the usual ASUS logo with the spinning dots, I get the blue Windows 10 logo ... but the same spinning dots, after a flurry of USB activity.
• Using a tutorial involving .wim packing to include Intel's chipset drivers for this Kaby Lake device in the Windows 10 ISO, and then booting that with an MBR/Fat32 stick
• Plugging in an optical drive to boot Windows 8 and try to get to those tools
• Using Boot-Repair in Ubuntu to try and fix BCD from a live USB (no dice)
• Plugging one of my MBR/Fat32 and GPT/UEFI sticks into a USB-A-to-C converter, then plugging that into the USB-C slot, and trying to boot from that slot

My main thought here is: The laptop "sees" the USB sticks/optical drive, and it will *try* to boot from them if I hit ESC or select them in BIOS. And it doesn't seem to matter about UEFI or Legacy, which I've set up both. Once it tries to boot Windows from USB, it just can't - maybe this laptop's USB 3.0 driver is somehow not present in the Windows install media? I've tried once packing the install file with Kaby Lake chipset drivers, but ... I have no idea anymore. Why will it boot an Ubuntu stick (in both UEFI and Legacy modes!) but not Windows 10?

:)

 

Installing windows off of a USB stick

Step By Step from vista:
From admin cmd prompt

1. diskpart
1a. list disk
2. select disk 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit

Copy Windows Vista's DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\ (d being your vista cd and e being your usb stick)

And that's it, boot off your usb disk

 

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