Solved Windows 11 update failed. Boot up loop

bdogg said:

On the two incompatibles I pressed F2 during initial startup, made sure under the BOOT section of BIOS that USB boot option was before HDD boot option, placed a Rufus installation USB in the port, and restarted.

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Manual boot priority order adjustments are not required to boot from a Windows installation USB flash drive; use the boot menu instead (also known as a one-time boot menu).

On both the Dell XPS 8940 and Dell XPS 17 9710, press F12 at startup when the Dell logo appears to open the one-time boot menu. (The F2 key opens the UEFI/BIOS setup instead.)

When the Windows 11 installation USB is inserted into a USB port and the computer is started using the boot menu key, the USB will appear in the boot menu, allowing you to boot from the USB even if it is not configured as the first boot device in the UEFI/BIOS settings.

Image below: Dell Latitude 5491 one-time boot menu showing "Windows Boot Manager" and a USB flash drive.

-"Windows Boot Manager" points to \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi on the EFI system partition.
- "SMI USB DISK 1100" is the default BIOS/UEFI identifier for USB flash drives powered by Silicon Motion (SMI) controller chips.



Most laptops and desktops feature a one-time boot menu key (e.g. for desktop motherboards: ASRock F11, Asus F8, Gigabyte F12, MSI F11).

Google Gemini: "Some specialized, enterprise, or older legacy systems do not have a dedicated one-time boot menu key. Users must enter the full UEFI/BIOS settings and manually change the boot priority order."

"... My BIOS/UEFI is by American Megatrends, but it won't allow me to boot from a USB flash drive."

In BIOS there is an option to disable "boot to USB drive". The following screenshot shows my American Megatrends BIOS setting. If yours is the same, then check if it is Partial Initialization or disabled. You can select Full Initialization to make USB drives accessible during boot.