Can't boot my HP Stream - 14-cb113wm from USB, supposedly need a BIOS update

[NurseCarol]

Windows 10 will not update. Microsoft told me I needed to create a boot media USB and reinstall windows. The laptop will not allow booting from a USB. Microsoft says this is because my BIOS is from 2018. When I try to find BIOS drivers on the HP site, it says "Wait while we search for those" forever.

What can I do?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Yes, with those notebooks with the 32 GB eMMC drives, you eventually run out of space and can't do anything with them.

You can't update the BIOS unless you run the update from Windows.

You should be able to boot from the USB flash drive without updating the BIOS.

Plug your bootable W10 USB in the PC's USB port.

The first thing to do is to turn on or restart the PC.

Immediately press/tap the ESC key to get the menu of options.

Select the F10 setup option and press the enter key.

Now you should in the BIOS.

Disable secure boot and enable legacy mode.

See this link for where these settings should be in your notebook...

HP Notebook PCs - Cannot Start Notebook Computer From a Bootable CD or DVD | HP® Customer Support

Save the settings and exit the BIOS.

Restart the PC, again press the ESC key to get the menu of options.

Select the F9 boot options menu and press the enter key.

You should see two lists of bootable devices--EFI and Legacy.

The W10 installation flash drive should be showing up in both the EFI and legacy boot options menu.

Select the EFI USB flash drive and press the enter key.

The PC should boot from the USB flash drive.

When you get to the part of the W10 installation that asks, 'Where do you want to install Windows,' delete every partition on the hard drive, leaving just one partition of unallocated space.

Note that when you delete all of the partitions on the drive, you will lose all data currently installed on it (programs, files, pictures, etc.).

Click Next and W10 should install.

Now, if you want to update the BIOS if the above steps don't work, here is the link to the latest BIOS update for your notebook.

However, I do not believe it will be necessary.

Driver - HP Stream - 14-cb113wm | HP® Customer Support