Making a bootable USB drive for Windows

Hazel123 · Oct 14, 2025

barryman said:
Well, as a last resort, following your advice I have just made a bootable USB using Rufus together with the Windows ISO file. I have just restarted PC and, yet again, it goes straight to my Windows desktop startup screen. Should there not be a window appear from the newly created Windows USB that gives me some options or is it meant to go straight into my PC ?? I'm fast running out of options......

Did you turn off fast start up in settings? I usually find that is the issue if wanting to boot from usb. (Post #17)

cheaterslick · Oct 14, 2025

Hazel123 said:
but opt for the small "repair" word bottom left and it'll take you to the troubleshooting menu.

What would that look like? Or does it depend on what hardware manufacturer you're using?

barryman · Oct 14, 2025

Further to request by MachineLanguage I am attaching photos of anything I thought might be relevant. Most of it I don't even understand what they mean !!

Strangely, one of the bootable USB sticks that I made using Aomei Backupper also boots into Windows desktop screen most times but curiously maybe 2 in 10 attempts to boot from it seems to get me to a Aomei screen with a few options available. But when I click on "restore" it comes up with a message saying it cannot find any system image and does not give me the option to choose location where image file is. Strange ?

Thanks all for your continued support.

Hazel123 · Oct 14, 2025

cheaterslick said:
What would that look like? Or does it depend on what hardware manufacturer you're using?

This is on the old installer. When you boot it will be the new installer maybe? If so, select "Previous Version of set up" to start the old installer which looks like this. Go through the language options and at this screen you can see bottom left " Repair your computer". That will take you to the troubleshooting menu.

barryman · Oct 14, 2025

Also, re Hazel123's suggestion about checking Fast Start settings I cannot find any option for that in my Control Panel/Power Options so cannot change that.

spapakons · Oct 14, 2025

From your photos, there is no USB in the list of devices to boot. Either the USB is not detected, or it is made to boot in Legacy BIOS mode while you have configured the computer to boot in UEFI mode only. In Rufus make sure you see GPT partition style which should create an UEFI bootable USB flash drive. Check UEFI firmware (aka BIOS) if booting from USB is disabled. Some models have it disabled by default for security reasons.

barryman · Oct 14, 2025

Update: First, Spapakons - the photo of Boot Order clearly says USB hard drive so I presume that is it, no??

Secondly, I have just made a straight bootable USB using Windows Media Creation direct, not using Rufus or anything else. And it seems to work as I get the old blue screen that gives me an option to Repair. I'll play around with it tomorrow and I'll see if it enables me to restore a system image (ie an Aomei backup system image) - fingers crossed that it will work. :wink:

Scott · Oct 14, 2025

barryman said:
I'll play around with it tomorrow and I'll see if it enables me to restore a system image (ie an Aomei backup system image) - fingers crossed that it will work.

The Windows USB won't restore a system image made by Aomei, Macrium, ect.
You'll need to boot from the Aomei rescue USB to restore your Aomei image.

spapakons · Oct 14, 2025

You are right. It says USB hard drive (old description for USB flash drive, newer systems list the USB brand, such as Sandisk). This is a Legacy entry. UEFI entries say UEFI at the end.

cheaterslick · Oct 14, 2025

Hazel123 said:
This is on the old installer. When you boot it will be the new installer maybe? If so, select "Previous Version of set up" to start the old installer which looks like this. Go through the language options and at this screen you can see bottom left " Repair your computer". That will take you to the troubleshooting menu.

View attachment 148830

Thanks!

Yeah, that is old. It looks like something from Vista or Windows 7

Maybe it's a different procedure now? Yeah?

Hazel123 · Oct 14, 2025

No it's still in there. You have the option to use the new installer or the old installer. The old installer was used for Windows 10 and I believe until Windows 11 24H2 - ie very recently. Without booting up, I can't remember where the small line "repair" is on the new installer but it's there if you look for it. I still opt to use the old installer.

Hazel123 · Oct 14, 2025

barryman said:
Also, re Hazel123's suggestion about checking Fast Start settings I cannot find any option for that in my Control Panel/Power Options so cannot change that.

It's there - click the blue line "Change settings that are currently unavailable" Then further down untick the box "Turn on fast start-up" Then save. That is Power Options and then click "Choose what the power button does" (on the left) to get this window below.

Scott · Oct 14, 2025

@cheaterslick Fast startup won't show if hibernation is turned off. See if there's a hyberfile.sys file in the root
of the C drive. If not, your hibernation is turned off.

My hibernation is turned off so no Fast Startup showing.

barryman · Oct 14, 2025

Eureka !!! Following all of your suggestions I have now:-
1) Re-enabled HIBERNATE which is why I initially couldn't get option to change Fast Start
2) Managed to make sure "Fast Start" is unticked
3) Went into boot order and re-selected USB as first port of call and then proceeded to boot up.

As a result my Windows Media Tool bootable disks now take me into the screen that offers "repair" as an option.

If I use the Windows bootable USB option I understand that I cannot select an Aomei system image to restore from. So, what's the most effective way of creating a Windows system image and would I be able to navigate to it within the bootable USB ? Also, if I chose repair option what would I be able to do to repair things bearing in mind my pretty limited computer knowledge. As a last resort could I just choose the option to install Windows 11 again??
Or if I can get into windows again I suppose I could run the SFC /scannow command followed by running a DISM process ?

I hope that with all your help I have nearly solved the problem. Just the above questions to get answered.

bobkn · Oct 14, 2025

I don't use Aomei, but I assume that it has an option to create a bootable USB "rescue" drive.

Megahertz · Oct 14, 2025

You don't need to change the boot order on BIOS to boot a flash drive
During post launch the boot menu.
O most computers it is F12. In Asus is F8 and in HP is F9.
To access the boot menu on an HP 290 G1 SFF Business PC, restart the computer and immediately press the Esc key repeatedly until the Startup Menu appears. From there, select the F9 key to access the Boot Options Menu

cheaterslick · Oct 14, 2025

Megahertz said:
You don't need to change the boot order on BIOS to boot a flash drive
During post launch the boot menu.
O most computers it is F12. In Asus is F8 and in HP is F9.
To access the boot menu on an HP 290 G1 SFF Business PC, restart the computer and immediately press the Esc key repeatedly until the Startup Menu appears. From there, select the F9 key to access the Boot Options Menu

On Dell it is F12

How to Flash the BIOS or UEFI with a USB Flash Drive | Dell US

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