Windows 10: Cannot boot from creation tool usb drive

I recently purchased a refurbished Dell Inspiron convertible laptop. It arrived with Windows 10 Pro installed but could not be activated as the pre-loaded key was for Windows 10 Home. I made a usb flash drive with the windows creation tool and then changed the boot order to load from the flash drive the machine in question does not have an optical drive. However, the usb is not being recognized as a bootable drive so now I'm stuck on the "insert boot disk" screen. The flash drive was blank before media creation tool install and is in FAT32 format.


Any ideas how to remedy this?

:)

 

Windows 10 Won't Boot, and I can't get the Media Creation Tool onto a USB drive

Hi,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Community.

The USB drive should be formatted and empty, then you can create the medic creation tool as below and check if it helps.

You may use the below Windows 10 ISO link to download the tool and check create the installation media.

Download Windows 10

• Run the media creation tool.
• Select Create installation media for another PC.
• Choose the language, edition, and architecture (64-bit or 32-bit) for Windows 10.
• Follow the steps to create the installation media, and then select Finish when it’s done.
• When you’re ready to perform a clean installation, turn on your PC, insert the
  DVD or USB flash drive you created, and then shut down your PC.
• Restart your PC, and then press any key to boot from the DVD or USB flash drive.

Hope this information is helpful and do let us know if you need further assistance. We will be glad to assist.

 

Failed Media Creation Tool attempt at bootable USB flash drive

Shawn, these are the steps being referred to that NavyLCDR posted. They work for both UEFI and MBR.

Here are the steps to create a standard Windows 10 USB flash drive:

1. Use the Media Creation Tool to download and save the ISO file to your hard drive.
2. Insert the USB flash drive.
3. Open a Administrator Command Prompt and enter: diskpart (if it isn't an administrator command prompt, it will ask for administrator permission).
4. list disk
5. select disk # <- replace # with the actual disk number of the USB flash drive
6. clean <- this will erase the disk selected above, make sure you selected the USB flash drive!
7. create part pri
8. format fs=fat32 quick
9. active
10. exit
11. exit - and if the first Command Prompt was not an Administrator Command Prompt, exit that one too.
11. Mount the ISO file saved by the Media Creation Tool. If you are using Windows 8 or 10, you only have to right click on it and click on mount. If you are using Windows 7, then you must use a program like WinCDEmu to mount the ISO file:
WinCDEmu - the easiest way to mount an ISO. And more...
12. Copy all the files and folders from the mounted ISO file to the USB flash drive.

That's as simple as it gets. Between steps 7 and 8 you can enter: "select part 1" without quotes - but it should not be necessary.
Between steps 8 and 9 you can enter: "assign" without quotes - but it should not be necessary.

 

Windows 10 USB boot

Hi there, am not a windows 10 expert. I have a pc in the bedroom on windows 10, I messed up the bootloader trying to fix the xp on that system.

System wont boot, trying to repair via win 10 usb installer.

Downloaded the media creation tool to install windows 10 installer on usb stick. Not compatible with a host of usb sticks I have. Tried the usb sticks that others use, but I think they use rufus; as the media creation tool by win 10 does not detect the usb stick.

So quick question, the win10 machine i am trying to repair the bootloader is a win7 upgraded to win10.
If i were to use the usb win10 installer to "repair installation" does the version of the iso downloaded via the media creation tool matter?

There is three options:
Windows 10
Windows 10 Home
Windows 10 N

Also is there a step by step instead of using rufus as I want to try an alternative method of creating a usb win 10 installer. Preferably with more compatibility.

System is a asus sabertooth 990 (r2?) with AMD phenom X 6.

Also is there any other software I can load onto the usb that can repair the bootloader easily?
That would be the ideal alternative. Thanks