Rufus won't format USB drives

I need to reinstall Win 11 due to many broken things, including the loss of all my printers. I have an older computer that won't pass the Win 11 hardware requirements. When I upgraded from Win 10, I downloaded Rufus and had a flawless upgrade.This time, I have to reinstall from scratch. I downloaded Rufus 4.14 again, but this time Rufus won't format any of the five USB drives (from four different brands) that I tried to use. I also tried three different USB 3.0 ports, but Rufus always reports a format failure due to unknown errors.I have disconnected everything from my rig and turned off all antivirus and security precautions, including firewalls (after disconnecting from the internet). The same thing happens every time.I need to bypass the Win 11 hardware requirements, and I don't know of any other way to do this besides Rufus. It also has to be very easy, as I only know enough to be dangerous to my system.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

@rebadurchee

Try deleting any and all partitions on one of the USB sticks, then try it in RUFUS.


Also, here's ten points for filling out your computer specs.






Here's some other things that you may find useful...

rebadurchee said:

I need to bypass the Win 11 hardware requirements, and I don't know of any other way to do this besides Rufus.

Click to expand...

If you can create a Windows 11 installation USB flash drive using the Media Creation Tool, you can bypass the Windows 11 system requirements check during a clean installation as follows.

Create a .reg file with the following content:


- Copy this file to your Windows 11 installation USB flash drive.
- Boot from a Windows 11 installation USB flash drive.
- When you reach the "Select setup option" screen, press Shift + F10 to open Command Prompt. On some laptops, you may need to press Shift + Fn + F10. Alternatively, select "Repair my PC" > "Next" > "Choose your keyboard layout" > "Troubleshoot" > "Command Prompt".
- Type regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
- In Registry Editor, click File > Import, locate your .reg file on the USB flash drive, and select it.
- Close the Registry Editor and the Command Prompt.

rebadurchee said:

but this time Rufus won't format any of the five USB drives (from four different brands) that I tried to use.

Click to expand...

I never use Rufus for formatting, always format the USB drive(s) to Rufus requirements using disk management software (AOMEI Partition Asst, Minitool) prior to creating Rufus boot drive
and/or
As @Ghot suggested above, present Rufus with an unallocated USB drive. Let's Rufus decide what it wants to do

Thank you all. I tried formatting the USB through Windows Disk Management. I then unchecked the "Quick Format" box in Rufus. It still wouldn't format.

I have backed up my system, two copies in addition to the original locations.

I have one other USB stick to try. In the meantime I am copying Rufus4.14.exe and the 24H2 iso to my wife's laptop and will try there.

All you feedback is much appreciated.

I just used Rufus 4.14 to do an install on an older computer. Part of the process was formatting a USB drive, it had no issues at all doing the format.

rebadurchee said:

I tried formatting the USB through Windows Disk Management. I then unchecked the "Quick Format" box in Rufus. It still wouldn't format.

Click to expand...

Do NOT format it. Just delete any and all partitions, so it says: Unallocated space.
Then try it in RUFUS.



There's also this...

Ghot said:

Try deleting any and all partitions on one of the USB sticks, then try it in RUFUS.

Click to expand...

Option one of the tutorial I posted does exactly that.

Diskpart
Clean

Ghot said:

Do NOT format it. Just delete any and all partitions, so it says: Unallocated space.
Then try it in RUFUS.

Click to expand...

I'll second that. I have only used RUFUS a few times (I use other methods to create my media), but each time I used it I had to wipe the disk. I simply used DISKPART to perform a CLEAN operation of the drive. Then RUFUS would work perfectly.

hsehestedt said:

I simply used DISKPART to perform a CLEAN operation of the drive

Click to expand...

I use EaseUs Partition Master (Technicians Edition), and do the same.

An alternative process to format the USB via Rufus (if you're not aware?)


You can format a USB nicely using RUFUS. It handles stubborn USB’s. Especially USB's that previously had a Rufus Windows install.

• Open RUFUS
• Select the USB
• Select Non bootable
• Click start

You can also Show advanced drive properties






Show advanced format options

Thank you all. It occurred to me that my OS is so messed up that it will never work. I finally went to my wife's laptop to make the Rufus USB and it went flawlessly.

However, when I boot from Rufus Win11 setup will not allow me to install Win11 because I am using MBR. This is because my mobo 's (MSI-Z390-A) latest and last BIOS won't allow it. I thought Rufus was supposed to take care of this. It did when I went from Win10 to 11. I thought all the hard work would come once the new OS was installed. Oy.

rebadurchee said:

I thought Rufus was supposed to take care of this.

Click to expand...

It does. In the setup process for creating the USB, there is an option in Rufus to choose the "Partition scheme" - GPT or MBR

rebadurchee said:

This is because my mobo 's (MSI-Z390-A) latest and last BIOS won't allow it.

Click to expand...

Page 51 of you manual. Leave this disabled.



Page 53 of your manual. Select UEFI.



Also on page 51

The Intel Core i7-9700K meets the Windows 11 system requirements, so a clean install of Windows 11 is possible once TPM 2.0 (Intel PTT) is enabled in the MSI Z390-A PRO motherboard BIOS settings — either manually or automatically via a recent BIOS update.

AMI BIOS 7B98v1E 2022-11-08

Description:
- Windows 11 Supported.

Click to expand...

rebadurchee said:

However, when I boot from Rufus Win11 setup will not allow me to install Win11 because I am using MBR.

Click to expand...

I assume you got the following error on the "Select location to install Windows 11" screen:

"The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, the operating system can only be installed to GPT disks."

This error message means that you have booted the Windows 11 USB flash drive in UEFI mode, but the disk is using the MBR partition style. Windows cannot be installed because the boot mode does not match the partition style.

How to fix it:

Delete all partitions (select the "Delete Partition" option) until there is only one "Unallocated Space" remaining on the disk.

When all partitions are deleted and only a single unallocated space remains, the error message will no longer appear.

Select Next. Windows Setup detects that the system was booted in UEFI mode and installs Windows on a GPT disk.

Note:

Windows Setup automatically targets the required partition style (GPT for UEFI or MBR for BIOS) based on the mode in which the Windows installation USB flash drive was booted.

BIOS/MBR installation:
- Boot the USB in BIOS mode (in the boot menu, select your USB without the "UEFI" prefix).
- Note that you cannot install Windows 11 in BIOS/MBR mode unless you bypass the Windows 11 system requirements check.

UEFI/GPT installation:
- Boot the USB in UEFI mode (in the boot menu, select your USB with the "UEFI" prefix).

After Windows is installed, the computer will automatically boot using the same mode that was used during installation.

A Windows 11 clean install doesn't strictly require a pure UEFI environment to function, and while the system must be Secure Boot capable, the feature itself does not need to be actively enabled.

MSI Z390-A PRO

These settings can also be changed after installing Windows 11.

Image below: If you haven't changed your BIOS settings, the default settings enable both Legacy BIOS and UEFI boot modes.



Image below: Enabling Windows 10 WHQL Support means that only UEFI mode is enabled. In this case, Windows 11 can only be installed in UEFI boot mode.



Image below: When Windows 10 WHQL Support is enabled, you can then enable Secure Boot.



On the MSI Z390-A PRO motherboard, for all practical purposes, Legacy BIOS boot mode is handled by CSM (Compatibility Support Module). On modern motherboards, CSM is either disabled by default (e.g. AMD X870) or not included at all (e.g. Intel Z890).