Question PC won't boot from USB

[kep55]

I'm trying to restore a pc that was running win10 home. It refuses to boot from a USB drive with the win10 media creation tool files on it.
I set the boot priority in BIOS to be nothing but USB drives - USB-ZIP, USB-Floppy, USB-HDD. I've even gone to the boot menu and selected an USB drive option. I've tried different USB ports. The machine still boots from the HDD into win10 and its stupid log-in screen.
Do I have any options?

 

[USAFRet]

a USB drive with the win10 media creation tool files on it.

Exactly what is on this USB drive?

 

[kep55]

It's the bootable USB for installing win10 created by the mictosoft media creation tool.

 

[dwd999]

I'm trying to restore a pc that was running win10 home. It refuses to boot from a USB drive with the win10 media creation tool files on it.
I set the boot priority in BIOS to be nothing but USB drives - USB-ZIP, USB-Floppy, USB-HDD. I've even gone to the boot menu and selected an USB drive option. I've tried different USB ports. The machine still boots from the HDD into win10 and its stupid log-in screen.
Do I have any options?

Do you have any "normal" usb sticks that are not a zip, floppy or hdd? Also how did you mount the media creation files on these usb drives? Did you create an iso using the media creation tool and then mount the iso on the usb drive using something like rufus.ie?

 

[BFG-9000]

A surprising number of PCs cannot boot from a USB stick larger than 32GB, so 16GB or 32GB sticks are the most compatible.

Also, if you run the media creation tool on a UEFI computer the stick itself will get formatted GPT which cannot boot on another machine running Legacy BIOS and MBR. The other way should boot but you only get a message about not being able to use the media to install on this machine. If you ran the tool on the very machine you are trying to install to, this should not be an issue unless it's infected or something.

As a last resort you could boot from an ATAPI DVD drive instead (which could be a USB one as no MBR or GPT then, but note Windows 10 is now large enough to require a DL disc).

 

[kep55]

USB drive is a 32GB Lexor drive created straight from the mictosoft media creation tool software.

 

[kep55]

Update: Tried using an 8GB USB dongle/memory stick/ whatchamacallit drive. No go. And because some genius at mictosoft decided to only allow 200 milliseconds to hit F8 for safe mode getting to the command prompt at start up is nigh impossible.

 

[BFG-9000]

The F8 option to enter safe mode was actually removed for Windows 10, because the geniuses at Microsoft figured "the most reliable Windows ever" could never break.

To restore the previous F8 functionality,
Open an administrator Command Prompt and input:
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
You will receive the message "The operation completed successfully"

Then you should permanently be able to hit F8 after POST to select from the boot menu whenever you like, just like previous versions of Windows