Author: parsec
Subject: Windows 10 UEFI Boot
Posted: 23 Feb 2017 at 12:02pm
This is absolutely ridiculous on the part of Microsoft, if they cripple their own installation media from UEFI booting.
First, and FYI about the USB port being used. The Intel 100 and 200 series chipset boards will only have USB 3.0 ports on the IO panel. As long as you use one of the USB 3.0 port on the IO panel on these boards, you'll be fine with a USB flash drive as the installation media... as long as the USB flash drive is NOT one from Microsoft, apparently.
I've used Windows 10 ISO download files from Microsoft for as long as Windows 10 was available, and have never had a problem using it for a UEFI booting installation.
All I do is have a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive, no larger than 16GB in capacity. They are normally formatted that way from the manufacture.
Using the MSoft Media Installation Tool from this page:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
I run it and follow the prompts, selecting Install on another PC, and save to an ISO file. I don't use the create USB option at the end of the process.
Once you have the ISO file, insert the USB flash drive, left click on the ISO folder, and select Mount. If you don't see all the ISO files displayed and highlighted, do that manually. Then left click in the highlighted area and select Send to, and select the USB flash drive. Takes a while but when complete, the USB flash drive will give you the "UEFI:" prefix in the boot order.
Did you try, with the MSoft USB flash drive, either setting the CSM option to Disabled, or setting the CSM sub-option, Launch Storage OpROM Policy to UEFI Only? Then restart into the UEFI/BIOS again, and check the boot order for the "UEFI:" entry for the USB flash drive. Or who knows, they may require you to set Secure Boot to enabled. You don't need to do that for a UEFI booting installation.
Do you have the Win 10 activation key written down anywhere in the package with the USB flash drive? If so, you could create your own installation flash drive, and use the key in the package. I buy Win 10 disks, use the ISO download, and just enter the key from the package.
I'm curious about the MSoft USB flash drive, why it won't cause a UEFI entry to appear. If you look at the folders on it, do you find an efi folder, with boot and microsoft\boot folders in it? Each of those folders should contain a .efi file, one with bootx64.efi, the other with cdboot.efi.
If those folders and files are there, which the fix above seems to indicate, then MSoft is screwing something up with these flash drives.
Subject: Windows 10 UEFI Boot
Posted: 23 Feb 2017 at 12:02pm
This is absolutely ridiculous on the part of Microsoft, if they cripple their own installation media from UEFI booting.
First, and FYI about the USB port being used. The Intel 100 and 200 series chipset boards will only have USB 3.0 ports on the IO panel. As long as you use one of the USB 3.0 port on the IO panel on these boards, you'll be fine with a USB flash drive as the installation media... as long as the USB flash drive is NOT one from Microsoft, apparently.
I've used Windows 10 ISO download files from Microsoft for as long as Windows 10 was available, and have never had a problem using it for a UEFI booting installation.
All I do is have a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive, no larger than 16GB in capacity. They are normally formatted that way from the manufacture.
Using the MSoft Media Installation Tool from this page:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
I run it and follow the prompts, selecting Install on another PC, and save to an ISO file. I don't use the create USB option at the end of the process.
Once you have the ISO file, insert the USB flash drive, left click on the ISO folder, and select Mount. If you don't see all the ISO files displayed and highlighted, do that manually. Then left click in the highlighted area and select Send to, and select the USB flash drive. Takes a while but when complete, the USB flash drive will give you the "UEFI:" prefix in the boot order.
Did you try, with the MSoft USB flash drive, either setting the CSM option to Disabled, or setting the CSM sub-option, Launch Storage OpROM Policy to UEFI Only? Then restart into the UEFI/BIOS again, and check the boot order for the "UEFI:" entry for the USB flash drive. Or who knows, they may require you to set Secure Boot to enabled. You don't need to do that for a UEFI booting installation.
Do you have the Win 10 activation key written down anywhere in the package with the USB flash drive? If so, you could create your own installation flash drive, and use the key in the package. I buy Win 10 disks, use the ISO download, and just enter the key from the package.
I'm curious about the MSoft USB flash drive, why it won't cause a UEFI entry to appear. If you look at the folders on it, do you find an efi folder, with boot and microsoft\boot folders in it? Each of those folders should contain a .efi file, one with bootx64.efi, the other with cdboot.efi.
If those folders and files are there, which the fix above seems to indicate, then MSoft is screwing something up with these flash drives.