Windows 10: Using Rufus 3.7 to install Win 10 Pro USB stick fails, ruins stick(?)

Rufus 3.7 seems to have made a Windows installation "spanning" my USB stick and a Windows 10 folder/drive/volume on my HDD. This has rendered my USB stick useless. Plus, it needs formatting, says Win 10, but its size is reported as 128MegaB, not 32GigaB).

I had screenshots of the Rufus screens but careless editing in Word lost them. I hope to recreate them soon.

(To clarify the complexity of the situation, I have attached a Word document with lots of shapes and screenshots. It contains all of the text below, so I'd look at the attachment instead of what follows.)

Here’s where I am right now.

Volume H: on my HDD contains a Windows installation that should have been put onto my 32 GB USB stick, as I had asked Rufus to do. Its size is 29.40 GB and would have fit nicely onto the USB stick.

Volume F: is my 32GB USB stick. Not only did Rufus not put Windows 10 onto it, Windows says the stick needs formatting, but it says capacity is 128 MB. No thanks.

The “Safely Remove Hardware and eject media” dialog shows that somehow F: and H: have been “grouped” under the name “Extreme”, which is the name of the USB stick.

If I want to eject F:, I can’t—it’s grayed out, as is H:. So I have to eject both or neither. “Extreme” is more or less the union of the two volumes. How can that happen? Why would it happen?

If I remove the stick (volume F, volume H: disappears from Disk Management. If I insert the stick, H: is back.

Volume F: never shows up in Disk Management since it supposedly needs formatting.

BTW, when Rufus finished, I didn’t at first notice that those two volumes were mentioned in the same textbox near the top of the Rufus dialog box, with a caption that said something like “Dual Partitions F: and H:”

I wish I had a screenshot. When I found that the USB stick did NOT contain Windows 10 Pro, I came back to the Rufus dialog and when I saw that message, I gave up. The day had been filled with other frustrations before Rufus.

If I format the USB stick, that’ll no doubt kill the Windows volume that Rufus added to my HDD. This would also kill the stick, I fear.

How did this mess happen? Can I save the USB stick?

(If that's not clear, even if it is, the attachment is worth looking at for more clarity. I hope.)


:)

 

Using Rufus 3.7 to install Win 10 Pro USB stick fails, ruins stick(?)

Rufus 3.7 seems to have made a Windows installation "spanning" my USB stick and a Windows 10 folder/drive/volume on my HDD. This has rendered my USB stick useless. Plus, it needs formatting, says Win 10, but its size is reported as 128MegaB, not 32GigaB).

I had screenshots of the Rufus screens but careless editing in Word lost them. I hope to recreate them soon.

(To clarify the complexity of the situation, I have attached a Word document with lots of shapes and screenshots. It contains all of the text below, so I'd look at the attachment instead of what follows.)

Here’s where I am right now.

Volume H: on my HDD contains a Windows installation that should have been put onto my 32 GB USB stick, as I had asked Rufus to do. Its size is 29.40 GB and would have fit nicely onto the USB stick.

Volume F: is my 32GB USB stick. Not only did Rufus not put Windows 10 onto it, Windows says the stick needs formatting, but it says capacity is 128 MB. No thanks.

The “Safely Remove Hardware and eject media” dialog shows that somehow F: and H: have been “grouped” under the name “Extreme”, which is the name of the USB stick.

If I want to eject F:, I can’t—it’s grayed out, as is H:. So I have to eject both or neither. “Extreme” is more or less the union of the two volumes. How can that happen? Why would it happen?

If I remove the stick (volume F, volume H: disappears from Disk Management. If I insert the stick, H: is back.

Volume F: never shows up in Disk Management since it supposedly needs formatting.

BTW, when Rufus finished, I didn’t at first notice that those two volumes were mentioned in the same textbox near the top of the Rufus dialog box, with a caption that said something like “Dual Partitions F: and H:”

I wish I had a screenshot. When I found that the USB stick did NOT contain Windows 10 Pro, I came back to the Rufus dialog and when I saw that message, I gave up. The day had been filled with other frustrations before Rufus.

If I format the USB stick, that’ll no doubt kill the Windows volume that Rufus added to my HDD. This would also kill the stick, I fear.

How did this mess happen? Can I save the USB stick?

(If that's not clear, even if it is, the attachment is worth looking at for more clarity. I hope.)

 

Using Rufus 3.7 to install Win 10 Pro USB stick fails, ruins stick(?)

Although some digging enabled me to get my unusable USB stick back to normal, thanks goes to @kyhi, who suggested these DOS and DISKPART commands:

diskpart
list disk
select disk 1
clean

Also thanks to @Megahertz for adding:

create partition primary
select partition 1
active

But I used:
format recommended

So my "ruined" USB stick is now formatted 32 GB, NTFS.

The .ISO I had tried to put onto USB stick is Win 10 Pro. Specifically its name is Win10_1903_V1_English_x64.iso, which I had downloaded a week ago. This ISO gets into the picture by selecting "Disk or ISO image (please select)" from the "Boot selection" dropdown menu and then figuring out to then click SELECT to be able to choose the downloaded ISO to be used.

@sportsfan148 mentioned problem if install.wim size > 4 GB.
Size is 3.99 GB (4,289,073,755 bytes).
Yes,4.289 GB > 4 GB,
but 3.99 GB < 4 GB.
Cutting it close, Microsoft.

Please see the attachment for the details of my interaction with Rufus.

Note that the “Important Notice” “More Info” link (FAQ . pbatard/rufus Wiki . GitHub
) gives a lot of important and interesting info, such as:

“[D]isable Secure Boot, as a temporary measure, so that you can boot the UEFI:NTFS bootloader… Secure Boot can always be disabled [via] BIOS… if [Rufus] requires. [W]e discourage the use of Media Creation Tool (MCT) [whose] ISOs … can not even be validated for corruption.”

The checkmark to the left of the SELECT button will give a checksum value for SHA-1 (such as SHA1: 344ca92459c23663d5f857c72a7c030f85f19be8) for which MSDN Files Info by WZT can be searched. It will give a result only for a genuine retail Microsoft ISO that has not been altered in any way. Mine has these properties:


Product (Full Name): Windows 10 (consumer editions), version 1903 (x64) - DVD (English)
File: en_windows_10_consumer_editions_version_1903_x64_dvd_b980e68c.iso
File Size (MB): unknown bytes (4,939,528,192 MB)
Date release: 2019-04-19
(Sportsfan: I think using Rufus trumps just copying ISO files to USB since there's no way to confirm real Microsoft copy that way.)

Note that ISOs that support both UEFI and BIOS boot will be converted to either one or the other mode, as follows.
If selected Partition Scheme (which is linked to Target System) is:

MBR, the USB will be bootable in BIOS mode (not UEFI)
GPT, the USB will be bootable in UEFI mode (not BIOS)for the Target System.

Since my laptop defaults to BIOS, the warning doesn’t apply.

Anyway, I now have a complete, working Windows 10 Pro installation on a USB stick.

P.S.
If I can find the time and energy after all the other stuff I have to do, I will try ASAP to reproduce the problem that I encountered using Rufus the first time, which caused the problem that I originally posted. This way, we can possibly profit by finding the "user error" suggested by @ferrellart.

 

Using Rufus 3.7 to install Win 10 Pro USB stick fails, ruins stick(?)

Rufus created a Multi-Partition "Removable" Drive (USB)

To regain USB - open Command Prompt(admin)
Type> DiskPart
Type> list disk
Type> select disk # (# being the Disk Number Assigned to USB Stick
Type> Clean

No need to use Rufus.... Just format USB Fat32 and copy contents of ISO to USB