Unable to install Windows 10 from USB Drive - Stuck at "Loading Operating System"

[Rudy_Eila]

Hey guys,

so I recently got a desktop from a friend of mine, and the hard drive was completely formatted. So I was trying to install Windows today, I downloaded the Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft, and created a bootable USB Flash Drive with the ISO using one of the tools from Microsoft. I set my boot device priority to USB-FDD or USB-HDD.

Then when the computer starts, a black screen starts and all I get is a message saying "Loading Operating System..." and it just stays there... I left it for over 15 minutes and it was still there.

I decided to then use the same flash drive, but this time, with a bootable Ubuntu ISO and it worked... I was able to install it, with no problems. (I should say that I actually did this before trying to install windows).

I thought the issue might be because Ubuntu had been installed first, and that might have messed up the bootloader or something like that, so I just decided to remove Ubuntu and reformat the HDD, same results!

The computer doesn't have a DVD Rom, so I am not sure what I can do....

Any help would be appreciated it!

Thank you!

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

What is the exact model motherboard you have?
are there any other USB modes in the BIOS settings?

as neither USB floppy disk or USB Hard disk is likely to be correct for a usb memory stick

Do you have a old PC witha BIOS or a more modern PC with UEFI?

A modern PC will identify a Windows 10 USB memory stick created with Microsoft media creation tool twice
once with UEFI in name & once without UEFI in name.

usually one will work depending on other settings


regards
Mike Barnes

 

[Rudy_Eila]

Hi

What is the exact model motherboard you have?
are there any other USB modes in the BIOS settings?

as neither USB floppy disk or USB Hard disk is likely to be correct for a usb memory stick

Do you have a old PC witha BIOS or a more modern PC with UEFI?

A modern PC will identify a Windows 10 USB memory stick created with Microsoft media creation tool twice
once with UEFI in name & once without UEFI in name.

usually one will work depending on other settings


regards
Mike Barnes

Hi Mike,

thanks for the reply.

As far as I an see the Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3. Whether it has a UEFI or not, I am not sure... It looked just like a plain old CMOS BIOS to me.

Also, I would like to add that it seems that "Grubs", the linux bootloader seems to have somehow taken over the boot process. The thing where it says "Loading Operating System..." seems to be Grubs trying to load Ubuntu but failing. I have completely reformatted the HDD but it is still going into "Grubs Recovery" mode whenever it tries to boot from the HDD.

Regarding boot options, once I go into the Boot Menu, these are the options I see:

LS120
Hard Disk (With a plus to it's left, probably indicating it is the main boot device)
CDROM
ZIP
USB-FDD
USB-ZIP
USB-CDROM
USB-HDD

Regards,
Rudy

 

[Rudy_Eila]

After trying pretty much everything, I finally managed to get it to work!
I was using a 32GB Flash Drive, and I read somewhere, that older BIOSes might have some issues reading such large Flash Drives. I had an old 4GB stick lying around, so I used that to create a bootable image, and that got it to work!