Whether I use Legacy or UEFI Mode, I can't get my PC to boot from flash drive, which was NEVER a problem before. It worked just fine, but now I tried Win Toolkit, RUFUS, and WinUSB maker with 2 different Windows 8.1 Update 1 ISO files (one by me and on by murphy). Neither worked. I reset BIOS settings completely, but that also didn't work - my PC sees the flash drive, but it just won't boot from it, without any error. If I force that flash drive to be the only boot drive, then it just takes me back into UEFI/BIOS without any error messages... Any ideas?
You never said how your BIOS is set... and I have found that some times F10 set is not pushed... once Boot To is not set also depends on what BIOS you have, what Manufacture your System is, most have different settings.... I have one that uses F2 to select Boot to, another uses F11 to select Boot to, and my Favorite is F12 to select BOOT TO. also you never said that you validated your USB is Bootable. what method or program did you use to Validate USB Bootable. you said you force the USB to be bootable, and it sends you to UEFI... is your USB UEFI Bootable...?
I would advise you check your BIOS to see if your secure boot is turn on. Check if the USB is a non-EUFI bootable.
Had the EUFI problem with a Windows2Go Portable HDD and a Laptop I was wanting to boot from. I found out there was an option from the Boot screen to boot from the HDD either norm. or thru EUFI. When I did the EUFI boot it gave me an error, when I did the norm USB HDD boot it worked. Try to see if there is a non EUFI boot option from your BIOS.
Don't bother with third party tools to make a bootable USB drive, it's easy to do manually. from an elevated command prompt, type diskpart type list disk a list of your disks will show, find your USB drive type select disk # (where # is your usb drive number from the list. Do NOT get this wrong!) type clean type convert gpt type assign type format quick fs=fat32 unit=32k type exit open the Windows ISO (even through Explorer using the built in ISO file system in Windows 8/8.1) select all the files and copy to the USB navigate to the efi folder, then boot folder, and copy the bootx64.efi file to the root folder of the USB drive Your USB drive is now UEFI bootable. The allocation size of 32 KB is better to use on flash drives than the FAT32 standard, and in fact 32 KB is the exFAT default, since exFAT is specifically designed for removable devices . Having it smaller than 32 KB can impede performance. The copying of bootx64.efi to the root folder should be unnecessary, but I have seen where the stick wouldn't boot without this file copied to the root folder. This shouldn't have been the case, but there's no harm in doing so. To do a complete wipe of the USB drive, use 'clean all' instead of just 'clean'. To do a full format, remove 'quick' from when you format the drive. Both Clean All and a full format will take longer.
I would suggest trying to just make a simple freedos boot drive using rufus without windows on it. Then try to boot from it. If it boots this will rule out the PC and the usb drive being bad. This way you know if you need to focus your attention on the way your making your usb, or if its bios or a corrupt usb drive.
You're right, it shouldn't, but it did in one case. We even deleted it from the root folder tried again, copied it back etc. Without fail it only worked when it was present in the root folder. I just suggested it just in case it was the same in this case, like I said no harm in it being there! Yes, be very very careful with the disk number! Rufus is good to use for safety, although I have also seen where it doesn't quite do what is ideally required...
On my flash drive w/ W2Go in it I just press the F12 key while the laptop starts up w/ the Drive info (DOS looking). This gives me a boot menu & I choose the USB drive choice, it boots up after setting up (1st time).
No go after USB Low Level formatting tool. It worked just fine a few days ago when I used it to restore my Acronis True Image 2014 backup... I was wondering if maybe its the ISO's... one of which is supposedly murphy's July release, but it has a Users/Public/Desktop/BONUS folder that has HTML links to 3 Russian warez sites (Cinema Megatrack, Megatrack.org, Win Torrent)... Would Murphy ever do something like that? I think this is the ISO I have - (not sure if its OK to post - sorry if it isn't!). Does the ISO itself have to have the exact same name that it had when it was created or can it be re-named to whatever? My system specs are: ASUS P8Z77-V Pro with the latest 2104 BIOS Intel i7 3770K @ 4.8Ghz @ 1.31v 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair Vengeance @ 2200Mhz @ 10-11-10-30 1T EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti SuperClocked w/ ACX Cooler & Backplate @ 1250Mhz GPU / 7500Mhz VRAM Samsung 830 256GB SSD SanDisk Extreme 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive I reset BIOS to defaults, but that did nothing... Dang! I need to try a different ISO. Anyone got a link to a 100% personally verified Murphy Windows 8.1 VLK Pro + July 2014 Updates ISO??? In the past, all I had to do was create an NTFS bootable flash drive, go into UEFI BIOS, and select the USB flash drive under Boot Device Override. That took me directly to USB flash drive boot screen. Now I just get a black screen flash/blink and back into UEFI BIOS.
Ha! Its the motherboard. It needs CMOS clearing because it sees my SanDisk Extreme flash drive even though the drive is disconnected. It sees it even after a BIOS settings reset! I tried another flash drive and it worked wonderfully, but slow... (USB 2.0). Now I just need to clear CMOS and enjoy brand new installation of Windows 8.1 Pro that I made with Win Toolkit!
Nope . After clearing CMOS, Windows continues to detect SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 drive and formats it perfectly, but BIOS does not detect it at all! I've been reading horrors about SanDisk Extreme sticks and all the issues people have with them. I can't make my SanDisk Extreme bootable, but maybe I can still install from it if I make another (slow) flash drive bootable and access SanDisk Extreme Windows 8.1 installation?
There is also a lot of talk about making this drive Windows to Go and something about making it like a regular drive rather than a removable one... and creating an active partition... Any ideas?
WinToGo only works with a bunch of specified drives. So it will not work with a random Sandisk USB (which is not certified)