I was using my wife's PC as mine had gone for repair. I had installed ubuntu and now she needs windows 10 back on it, as she is totally blank with ubuntu and the command line. So, I have just got a bootable windows 10 64 bit USB drive. Now how do I format this ubuntu completely and install windows 10 fresh ? Pressing F8 or F10 or F12, doesnt open the bootable option. How do I tell the PC to boot to USB ?
f2 or f12 are also common keys. But looks like the OP didn't check them, he just tried to trigger the popup, not to enter in the bios.
You should see the BIOS post screen when booting, you can hit the pause key if it's to fast, this usually tells you the F keys to enter BIOS (setup), open boot menu, recovery. Try tapping the F11 key as soon as the PC boots and keep tapping it, and then try other keys posted, if you don't see it, just try DEL and enter the BIOS and go to boot tab and set the USB as first boot.
If you set the USB to boot first in the bios, make sure you remove your usb drive on first restart or else the installation will start all over again. If you use the one time boot menu, you don't to worry about it.
Its connected to a wireless keyboard and its doesnt work until ubuntu screen comes up. I think to reach BIOS, have to connect a wired keyboard.
After the first restart it will boot to the USB again because it is set to boot first in the bios. Give it a try if you have an extra hard drive. It's happen to me.
This could be your problem, for the last years i didn't have any problems with mainstream brands of wireless keyboards but a wired one should work allways.
Indeed it boots from USB if is set this way on the bios. But the first thing the botloader does is to ask to press any key to boot from USB. It behave this way unless there isn't any OS present on the HDD. In that case wouldn't make any sense to show that menu. So, when you install the OS for the first time, using a brand new HDD the system boots from USB (or DVD), usually no matter of the boot sequence set on BIOS. On the second pass the, system boot from DVD/USB, but asks to press a key to continue booting from there. If the user takes no action the boot continues from the first HDD. Unless you have a buggy bios.
After about a thousand installs of windows have never seen what you say. When set to USB and you install windows, she will boot to the USB or DVD which windows bootloader will give the post and ask if you want to boot from again, but if you don't press any keys, the install will continue. T-S is right.