Laptop not booting to USB stick

[EliBelgium]

Hi,

I am struggling with an HP laptop for the past 4 hours that refuses to boot into a windows installation USB. 

This laptop had it's motherboard replaced by me. After the replacement there were random blue screens so I decided to reinstall windows.

This however does not work.

I enabled legacy and safe boot is disabled.

I can see the USB in the boot menu when hitting f9 (see screenshot 1).

Instead of booting to the USB the system still boots to windows boot loader.

To go around this I took out the SSD and formatted it on another PC thinking it erased the win boot loader.  This is not the case as the laptop still skips the USB stick and tries to boot normally which ofcourse does not work (see screenshot 2)

Any advice on how to get this machine to work again would be highly appreciated.

[Riddle_Decipher]

@EliBelgium How is the reset attempted, did you make use of the HP Recovery partition (F11) or did you use the HP recovery media? 
If you don't have an HP Recovery media and have attempted reset using the windows troubleshooter or a retail copy of windows, you'll need to order a recovery media: Click here for steps. Or you may also attempt to download the same using the steps on this link: click here

For details on how to perform a successful reset: click here

P.S: Welcome to HP Community 😉

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[EliBelgium]

Hi @rRddle_Decipher,

Thank you so much for your reply!

I have tried to follow the steps found here  but I am still encountering a blue screen as the system tries to boot from the USB drive. The drive  was successfully imaged on my work desktop.

Error code is 0xc000021a (see screenshot)

The first boot device is the USB stick and the SSD is completely clean (wiped) so no bootloader on it.

I've tried 5 different RAM sticks and I get the same error with all of them.

Secure boot is disabled and legacy support is enabled.

Any ideas?

[Riddle_Decipher]

@EliBelgium I suggest you perform a hardware test on the device, to ensure the drive is good, before we troubleshoot the error,

• Hold the power button for at least five seconds to turn off the computer.
• Turn on the computer and immediately press Esc repeatedly, about once every second. When the menu appears, press the F2 key.
• On the HP PC Hardware Diagnostics (UEFI) main menu, click System Tests.
• Click Extensive Test.
• Click Run once, or Loop until error.
• While the test is running, the time remaining and test result for each component display on the screen.

If a component fails a test, write down the failure ID (24-digit code) for when you respond back to us.

[EliBelgium]

Hi,

This is the menu I see when taping f2

i've run both the memtest and the hdd test and no errors were found.

Prior to creating the HP recovery USB I ran a hardware test and I had more options then (notably the extensive test you mention) I don't understand why i'm not seeing these options now.

[Riddle_Decipher]

@EliBelgium The extensive test options will only show up when the hardware diagnostics UEFI firmware is upgraded, that said, since the hard drive tests have passed, it confirms that this is not a hardware malfunction and if the USB drive isn't working on any other slots either, please check if it works on another device, if not, consider ordering a new one from HP using the details mentioned in the link shared earlier

And good luck!

[Raptor227]

Safe boot off is good.  Legacy should not be enabled (if your system runs UEFI) unless you are using an early version of Win10.  A good place to look initially is your BIOS version.  Bios's had to be upgraded for windows installation and use after ver 1099 (May be off).  Bios versions can be checked on your laptop page on HP. (Good luck, as I have been hearing alot of complaints about the upgrade software).  After you verify your BIOS go into boot options (F9) after hitting ESC to stop boot up.  Make sure boot files from the USB are being used.  

Another option is to use Microsoft Media Creation tool to get the latest version of Windows with multi boot support.

[Raptor227]

Sorry I forgot one thing.  Go into your BIOS and rearrange the boot loading system.  Put the HDD last.  Then go into the F9 menu and verify the USB file is listed and highlighted.  It has to be highlighted and not just listed.  (Sorry, I'm not trying to dumb this down, but I have had similar problems in the past)

[EliBelgium]

Hi there,

This is getting more and more absurd.

I'm attaching screenshots of my settings and the result when booting to the USB drive with the bios update on it.

To create the bios update usb  media I downloaded this:

https://support.hp.com/za-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-pavilion-power-15-cb000-laptop-pc/15551388/model...

I followed the guide to create it and had no issue

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00007682

And when I boot I get an error generated by windows boot manager. This is happening on a wiped SSD and on a brand new ssd.

Never seen this before and I don't understand how this can even happen?

The error I get when supposedly booting from USB with bios update on it

Menu when hitting f9

Boot order settings in bios

[Raptor227]

Brother I'm right there with you.  Now HP Support is telling me to order replacment media.  I don't want to put 4 yo applications on this after replacing a hard drive.  I bet a nickel they have imbedded program that only allows them to install.