Question Windows 10 Bootable USB and Disc won't run ?

[Zakouu]

So I finally bought an M.2 NVMe SSD, and installed it in my PC. I wanted to install Windows 10 onto it, so I used the Microsoft Media Creation Tool to create a bootable USB, and I also have a Windows 10 ISO burned to a disc.

When I tried to boot from the USB, it just looped the bios POST sceen rebooting over and over, and when I tried to boot from my disc, it showed the windows logo, then a black screen with a blinking underscore before also looping the bios POST screen and rebooting over and over. I know the disc worked in the past, and I tried re-doing the MCT a few times with no change.

I plugged my HDD back in to check both the USB and a Windows ISO on MobaLiveCD, and every time I test them, it shows the Windows logo before going to a black screen with a white underscore. For some reason my PC is refusing to run the Windows installer so I have no way to get a fresh install of Windows onto my new SSD and I'm completely lost at what to do from here ?

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Might want to parse the make and model of your motherboard and it's subsequent BIOS version. As for your pen drive used for fabricating the installer, what is the make and model of the drive? Perhaps try and source another pen drive to rule out the one you have being faulty//failing.

 

[Zakouu]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Might want to parse the make and model of your motherboard and it's subsequent BIOS version. As for your pen drive used for fabricating the installer, what is the make and model of the drive? Perhaps try and source another pen drive to rule out the one you have being faulty//failing.

Well, I have a Gigabyte GA-AB350 Gaming motherboard. I'll have to check the BIOS version in the morning.

As for the USB Drive, it's a SanDisk Ultra Flair USB 3.0 128 GB..but I'm less worried about it being faulty when a Windows ISO and a disc I've used previously, don't work either.

 

[TerryLaze]

Blinking underscore is almost always a conflict in the boot options.
Make sure to go into bios and explicitly make it boot from the usb or optical disc only.
Also changing the legacy/uefi option might fix the issue.

 

[Zakouu]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Might want to parse the make and model of your motherboard and it's subsequent BIOS version. As for your pen drive used for fabricating the installer, what is the make and model of the drive? Perhaps try and source another pen drive to rule out the one you have being faulty//failing.

Thanks to this, I figured out how to fix it; had to update my BIOS. After that it let me use the bootable USB to install windows.

If anyone else comes upon this thread for using an NVMe m.2 SSD on a Gigabyte GA-AB350 Gaming, I had to remove the m.2 drive after updating BIOS to flash 31 (required before more recent updates), because the BIOS won't load on 31 with the m.2 drive installed. After updating to newer versions of the BIOS after that, the m.2 drive can go back in. Flash 41 had NVMe compatibility updates, probably what fixed my issues.