Windows 10: Help! Login has disappeared when I boot

I know this will cause controversy, and I only mention it as an easy alternative that works. Rufus can quickly and safely create a bootable USB flash drive, without any command line work. It's only a suggestion, not meant to cause anything negative at all.

Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

 

That may work. I think his issue was the MCT wouldn't use the thumb drive he had. Likely because it has a bit set to make it show as a Fixed disk instead of the normal Removable media. If that's true RUFUS will likely reject it also. The Windows 7 DVD download Tool will reject those thumb drives too. I have a couple of Sandisk drives that show up that way. The MCT and the 7 DVD tool won't use them. All my Kingston drives work just fine though.
I like using diskpart because I can make one drive and use it on both UEFI and Legacy. The downside of diskpart is if your not carful you can erase the wrong drive. I did try RUFUS a while back. It works but you can easily get a setting wrong and end up with a drive that doesn't work.
My ASUS laptop that is UEFI will boot from a Fat32 or NTFS formatted thumb drive and install in UEFI from either. Most PC's won't do that, they want Fat32 for UEFI installs.
My Wife's Acer is very fussy. The only thumb drive I could get it to boot from was one I did with diskpart. Any other way and it wouldn't boot off of it.

The other reason I like using diskpart is, with the MCT, if you want to create more than one thumb drive it wants to download the ISO fresh every time. You have to start over from the beginning each time. Big waist of time. I just download to an ISO file. Then use diskpart to create my thumb drives. I customize my install media to each PC and end up with a thumb drive for each PC. I use a PID.txt file to install the specific version of 10 I want and bypass the OEM keys.

 

All valid points. Just FYI....the latest version of Rufus has gotten a lot smarter and will default to proper settings based on the ISO chosen and OS of the box. Not totally foolproof, nothing is, but real close.

That "removable" bit can get messed up real bad if you try to take a brand new thumb (default factory FAT32) and try to format NTFS. I've seen 64GB thumbs turned into 8GB doorstops.

 

I've formatted my thumb drives in FAT and NTFS with no issues. Switched back and forth a few times too. I have a 64 GB Kingston Hyper X I want to switch the bit on but can't. It's in the firmware of the drive. The official Windows To Go Utility will only use thumb drives that are set to Fixed Disk. It rejects normal drives set as removable media. It won't let me use my 64 gig Hyper X, but will use my slow poke 5400 RPM IDE Laptop drive in an external USN enclosure. *Devil The Official WTG certified drives have the bit set to fixed disk, and cost about twice as much as a normal drive the same size. *Mad

 

I ran Rufus on my Windows 7 PC. Rufus can see the Memory stick and formatted it (I think), but the Media Creation Tool is still failing to see it. [GRRR!]

Fwiw, memory stick is Kingston 32GB. Is that too high for Windows 7 or MediaCreationTool to see?

 

I don't think there is a size cap? I haven't used the MCT in a while now and the biggest drive I've used was 16 gig. MVP's get a free MSDN subscription from Microsoft so I usually just use my MSDN ISO's and skip using the MCT.

 

I must really be missing something here. The Media Creation Tool allows for the creation of an ISO, and even allows you to create it wherever you want to. Same drive or navigate to an external and create it there. Doesn't destroy anything, just creates an ISO file. If Rufus can see the thumb and burn to it, there's the install media. I just did it.

 

It used to be that all you got via the MCT was Home and Pro. I also run Education and some times Enterprise. MSDN was the only way to get those ISO's. Now the MCT gives you Home, Pro, Education, and I think Enterprise in the "Windows 10 ISO" option. For me it was quicker and easier to download multiple ISO's from MSDN. Now the MCT may be a better option. I'm going to have another go at it, I'm just waiting for the Creators Update to drop first. Then I'll be doing another round of test upgrades and test clean installs. I'll still only use the MCT to download the ISO, not to actually create a thumb drive.

 

Nope, Rufus can see my memory stick. Windows can see it. But Media Creation Tool can't. The memory stick is made by Kingston, "FAT32, Type: Removable, 29GB, Healthy". Yes I have just rebooted my PC.

[Quick Aside: What the heck is wrong with people who design these systems? Why the heck is this so hard? G*d I hate computers. Or maybe I just hate Microsoft, I can't decide.]

 

@ship69

You back up after a clean install?

 

It's better than it used to be. Before Windows 8 there was no Media Creation Tool. ISO's were a PITA to get hold of. OEM PC's don't come with install media. You had to resort to going to the shadier side of the Internet to get an ISO.

 

No, I can boot up to a point off my Windows 10 DVD, but "Windows setup" says "No signed device drivers were found".

To get clear the state of play is that:
A) I have access to an 8 year old PC that is running Windows 7 x64, with Internet access.
B) I managed to download Media Creation Tool (MCT) on this PC and with it I managed to create a Windows 10 disk.
The first problem is that it may not be Window 10 Pro, but never mind that.
C) If I reboot my laptop it says "Samsung" but then fails to load windows
D) If I put the Windows 10 DVD into the external (USB) DVD of my Samsung Laptop (that was until very recently running Windows10), the laptop does see it an attempts to boot. It finds "Windows setup" which asks which language to install etc and then "Install Now" (or "Repair your computer")
E) If I Choose "Repair your computer" followed by "Troubleshoot" I get a command prompt saying "X:\sources"
F) If I enter DISKPART and then "LIST DISK", it only shows "Disk 0" which has zero bytes free, so I am assuming that this disk is the DVD drive with the Windows 10 DVD on it.

i.e. The core problem seems to be that my laptop can't actually see the SSD.

G) The other problem is that although my Windows 7 x64 PC can see my memory stick, even though I have tried using DISKPART on it, and converted it to GPT, and then rebooted that PC, MCT simply can't recognise that memory stick at all.

H) UPDATE: Having converted the memory stick to GPT, I now find that Windows 7 can no longer see the memory stick



With thanks

J

PS I have tried contacting Samsung support but they say:

"We do not provide SW support for our OEM drives. Please contact the system manufacturer."

I replied saying that they are they system manufacture, but the are refusing to reply, which is frankly pretty disgraceful.

 

I was playing around with my older desktop PC today, booting from a thumb drive made with the MCT to have a look at some of the setup menus. On this PC I have to do some out of the ordinary BIOS settings to get it to boot from my thumb drive.
For some reason my Kingston DATA traveller is detected as a hard drive. Its listed in the hard drive boot menu. I'm pretty sure Windows 7 install media doesn't do this. Anyway what I have to do is set the thumb drive as the first option in the hard drive menu, then it shows up in my boot order menu.

BIOS Boot > Hard Disk Drive > 1st Drive > USB-Kingston Data Traveller.
BIOS Boot > Boot Device Priority > 1st Boot Device > USB-Kingston Data Traveller.

Then I can boot into the thumb drive. On the first reboot I have to go and undo it all and set the hard drive back as the first boot device. For what ever reason my quick boot F8 menu doesn't see the Windows 10 thumb drive. This an old motherboard ASUS M2N68.

 

UPDATE:
OK I am now back at home and have access to a Windows 10 Pro x64 computer.

I had a brainwave and found a utility on Kingston's website that formats their memory sticks.
DTHX30 Download Kingston Format Utility | Kingston

From what I can see, Kingston had done something idiotic to the memory stick that stops certain Windows applications from being able to see the thing. [???]

Anyhow I have re-formatted it using the above utility and now (FINALLY!), MediaCreationTool.exe can actually SEE the memory stick.

Whether my Samsung laptop will be able to see it so, and whether it will contain the correct drivers for my SSD only time will tell. Watch this space.

J

 

Hey!!! Progress! Keep chargin' ! *Smile