Clean install win 10 professional from USB

[NewToAllInOne]

Hi, 

I have looked at the following too: 

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebooks-Archive-Read-Only/Windows-10-USB-flash-drive-clean-installat... 

This computer came with win 10 home so i am updating it now to win 10 professional. I have used the same media on my old Lenovo laptop (dead now) and it worked without any issue so i decided to put the professional version on this desk top. 

1. I put the usb in USB3 port (top one) and also tried USB3 (bottom one) on the left side. 

2. Went into bios, below image and selected the USB media. 

3. After that i am not getting the clean install two options or use media option as detailed in other posts. 

How can i clean install the win 10 prof on this machine?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

You have to select the UEFI Generic USB flash disk in the boot menu and press the enter key to boot from the installation media.

You can also easily upgrade from Home to Pro by changing the product key as follows...

Upgrade using a Windows 10 Pro product key

Select the Start button, then select Settings > Update & Security > Activation .
Select Change product key, and then enter the 25-character Windows 10 Pro product key.
Select Next to start the upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.

[NewToAllInOne]

Since the boot wasn't happening for me, i tried to do full clean using windows 10 options and went to bed. It failed in the middle and now boot from hard drive isn't even showing up for me. So can't use the product key approach. 

I did this : UEFI Generic USB flash disk in the boot

May be i need to put the USB in USB2 rather than USB3

[Paul_Tikkanen]

See if this works...

Go into the BIOS, enable legacy mode and disable secure boot.

See this link for the settings to change.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03659945

Then have your USB flash drive in a USB port, try the USB 2 port if you want, but it should work in any port.

Turn on the PC, immediately tap the ESC key at the beginning of the HP welcome screen to get the menu of options.

Select the F9 boot options menu, and from that, select the Legacy USB flash drive, and press the Enter key.

Hopefully the PC will boot from the W10 installation media and you can clean install W10.

[NewToAllInOne · Accepted solution]

I dont know why the system wasnt booting from the media initially. Took the following steps

1. Creared a new boot usb with win10 prof using rufus. This media worked, only tried in USB2. Flashdrive was USB 2.0 as well.

2. This media booted the machine but got into another issue. It was due to HP using MBR partition table. Changed it to GPT for UEFI boot. When the first screen shows up, click repair at the bottom and then select command prompt. Just search for it, but need to

A. Check and change to drive

B. Do clean

C  Can delete all partitions from here as well

3. Restart and every thing should work.