Question Can't boot from USB flash drive to install Win 10 ?

PaulosK

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May 25, 2019
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I have 2 drives on my pc, one ssd which runs linux and one hdd that is now probably corrupted (it used to have photos etc..). I wanted to install windows to check if I csn recover my files from there. I downloaded a windiws 10 iso, i used a 32 gb usb with a ntfs partition, i extracted the iso in my usb and i tried to boot from it. Even when i unpluged both my drives, it shows this error:
" grub error invalid arch-independent elf magic".
This usb used to be a lubuntu live usb, but it probably got corrupted too, so I reformated it.
Any ideas what is going on?
 
it shows this error:
" grub error invalid arch-independent elf magic".
You are still booting from your linux partition, or the usb has linux boot files on it.

Also it's important for the partition on the USB to be activated and the usb to have a boot block, not all of them come with one from the factory.

Also search for hirens bootcd pe, it will boot into a "live" version of windows, which is very limited, but he has pre-installed legal recovery tools on there.

If you install stuff on windows it could write files on the disk that has the photos lowering your chances.
 
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I have 2 drives on my pc, one ssd which runs linux and one hdd that is now probably corrupted (it used to have photos etc..). I wanted to install windows to check if I csn recover my files from there. I downloaded a windiws 10 iso, i used a 32 gb usb with a ntfs partition, i extracted the iso in my usb and i tried to boot from it. Even when i unpluged both my drives, it shows this error:
" grub error invalid arch-independent elf magic".
This usb used to be a lubuntu live usb, but it probably got corrupted too, so I reformated it.
Any ideas what is going on?
There's no "extracting the iso" involved. You are supposed to use a program like Rufus.ie to mount the iso onto the usb and then it will boot. Some linux users like the use the Etcher program to mount iso's on usb's so you could use that as well. But if you can boot your computer from your linux drive you should be able to access any remaining uncorrupted files on your windows drive. If not then they're corrupted beyond simple recovery and you would have to consider an advanced recovery software program or a specialized data recovery company.
 

PaulosK

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May 25, 2019
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There's no "extracting the iso" involved. You are supposed to use a program like Rufus.ie to mount the iso onto the usb and then it will boot. Some linux users like the use the Etcher program to mount iso's on usb's so you could use that as well. But if you can boot your computer from your linux drive you should be able to access any remaining uncorrupted files on your windows drive. If not then they're corrupted beyond simple recovery and you would have to consider an advanced recovery software program or a specialized data recovery company.
Etcher doesnt work well with windows isos.
How do you think rufus works? It extracts the data from the iso, it formats the usb and then it pastes the data in the usb.
There are more recovery programms for windows than linux, so i hope one of them works.
 

Cj-tech

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Jan 27, 2021
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Etcher doesnt work well with windows isos.
How do you think rufus works? It extracts the data from the iso, it formats the usb and then it pastes the data in the usb.
There are more recovery programms for windows than linux, so i hope one of them works.
Use Rufus. You can’t just copy and paste the files, obviously it’s not working. There’s a reason tools such as Rufus were invented :)

Edit: Even better… use the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool.
 

PaulosK

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May 25, 2019
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Use Rufus. You can’t just copy and paste the files, obviously it’s not working. There’s a reason tools such as Rufus were invented :)

Edit: Even better… use the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool.
Ironically this worked (havent done a full installation yet, but it starts and lets me make partitions). I have an old windows xp laptop and i tried an older version of rufus on it. The only difference between what rufus did and my extracting the files of the iso, was that i used a gpt partition table and rufus an mbr (there wasnt a gpt option on the version i used). I haven't check if i have uefi enabled, but I don't think this is the issue, since gpt boot usbs worked for me in the past. Maybe i will look some more on how those usb burners apps work.
Also the windows media creation tool kinda sucks. It is only available on windows 7-10 and doesn't have a log to tell you what it does.
 

boju

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Afaik, if you buy Windows 10 usb installer or create your own with media creation tool, both are Fat32. Mbr/Gpt comes into play when installing Windows based on what boot table Bios is set to. Legacy = Mbr. Uefi = Gpt. It's all automatic based on that.