Windows 10: UEFI booting

I created two UEFI bootable USB drives:
USB stick 1.) using windows 10 "create recovery drive" - on a 32GB usb 3.0 drive
USB stick 2.) using EASE US backup/restore software - on a 4GB usb 2.0 drive

Both sticks appear to be UEFI. When I put them in my windows 10 desktop machine, they both show up in the boot menu as "UEFI:" followed by the usb stick brand name. Stick 2 also shows up a 2nd time in the boot menu, with the brand name but without the "UEFI" in front. When I select Stick 1 from the boot menu, the desktop machine boots, asks for the keyboard type and continues to the recovery program. However the desktop will not boot to Stick 2 using either of its boot menu choices.

Then I tried them in my Lenovo Yoga 2pro laptop (now with windows 10). The only way to get the boot menu on this device is to power down and hit the small button on the side. Stick 2 appears in the boot menu, and when I select it the EASE US backup software starts. Stick 1 is a different story however. I can boot to it by selecting "Advanced startup" under Settings, Recovery and then it boots and behaves like it did on my desktop machine. However it does not show up at all in the boot menu, and thus there would be no way to boot to it if windows was broken. (Kind of defeats the purpose of the USB stick!). I also tried this on a second Yoga 2 pro that I have and the results were the same. (I've already disabled the "secure boot" option in the BIOS.)

I'm wondering if there is more than one UEFI type that would explain the different behaviors? I tried to ask a Lenovo customer support agent about this but he didn't seem to know much about this topic and his response was not helpful. Perhaps this is just a Lenovo problem, but in case it is more general, I thought I would ask here first.

Thanks.
~Paul

:)

 

windows 10 wont start - checking media fail

I have a 'secure boot mode'

Not sure I can find 'boot order' - is this it?

I found:

Boot mode is set to UEFI Secure boot on

then

UEFI BOOT:

UEFI onboard LAN IPv4

UEFI onboard LAN IPv6

Other options

:

:

thanks

 

Windows 10 Blue Screens

If the media continues to fail booting, check if it boots correctly on another PC. If not recreate it. If so, enter BIOS or UEFI setup to report back settings for UEFI, CSM, Legacy BIOS, Fast Boot, Secure Boot, and BIOS/UEFI Boot Priority Order.

 

Is your stick 1 formatted with NTFS ? If so, recreate it but format it with FAT32 because some earlier version of UEFI firmware won't boot if it is formatted with NTFS.

 

*Ditto My ASUS laptop will boot in UEFI mode with my thumb drive formatted in NTFS but my wife's Acer won't. The Acer is very fussy as to how the thumb drive is created. I have to use fat 32 for the Acer. I use option 2, diskpart, here, http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...e-windows.html That same thumb drive works in both laptops and my non UEFI desktop PC's. Just substitute the Windows 8 ISO with your Windows 10 ISO.

 

Interestingly enough, both sticks are formatted as FAT32. So actually both behaviors (the desktops refusal to boot to stick 2 and the laptops refusal to boot to stick 1) are a mystery. Perhaps the stick's size has something to do with it?

~Paul

 

Is the partition marked active? That's another, some PC's (BIOS) need it some don't. My wife's Acer won't boot from the thumb drive if the partition isn't marked active. I'm not sure about my ASUS? It seems to depend on how new your UEFI BIOS is. The newer versions are more forgiving of how you create your install media.

 

Good guess ... but that's not it. (See attachement).

~Paul

 

OK, it was worth a shoot. I tried many different utilities on my wife's Acer, Rufus, letting the actual media creation tool create the thumb drive, the windows 7 DVD download tool. Non of them worked, it would not boot from it. I eventually resorted to dispart and it worked. Since then that's the way I do all my thumb drives.