Notebook won't boot to Windows

[AliMac16]

My Notebook is not booting to Windows from the hard drive. I have ran a system check and it shows a hard drive DST short test failure. I assumed it was a hard drive error, so I created a bootable USB to recover the OS from, however that wouldn't boot either (I have set legacy support on and disabled secure boot). I tested the USB on a different laptop (HP Pavilion) and it booted fine, so the USB IS definitely bootable. I also tried a different bootable USB (TailsOS) in the notebook and it booted to that no bother, so the machine CAN boot from USB.

I have tried hard resetting the machine by removing the battery and AC adapter, holding the power button and rebooting. I have tried battery in and AC out, AC in and battery out, both in, both out, legacy support on and off, and I have tried lighting candles and praying to Bill Gates, and I am officially out of ideas. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

[WAWood]

@AliMac16 

Did you already replace the drive?  If you did not, you're wasting your time with a reinstall -- it's just going to fail.

Also, if your PC came with Win10 preloaded, it was almost certainly in UEFI mode, not Legacy mode.  You need to reinstall in the same mode.

[AliMac16]

Yep, got a spare hard drive ready which should be functioning. Just need to get windows on it! As I said, I have tried all combinations of legacy/UEFI and secure boot/non-secure boot. In no situation does the machine boot beyond the HP splash screen when using a Windows OS.

I plan to put the fresh hard drive into a different machine which the USB boots on, install Windows from there, and then try the new hard drive in the notebook. I'll update with the results!

[WAWood]

@AliMac16 

Sorry, but you can't LEGALLY transfer Windows from one PC to another.  Your laptop uses an HP OEM version of Windows and that will not transfer to another PC.  If the other PC is also an OEM license (it came preinstalled) then you can not transfer that to this PC.

Additionally, unless the hardware is nearly identical, when you put the HDD from the other PC into your laptop, even if it does boot, you're liable not to get a screen due to different video hardware.

[AliMac16]

Ok then any suggestion on how I may get Windows reinstalled on this Notebook? To recap:

• The installation media I have created will not boot on the Notebook (in either lecagy or UEFI modes), but works on other machines
• The Notebook cannot boot from the Windows installation media, but boots linux live media fine.

Could the reason the Windows USB won't boot be something to do with the OEM license, as it was created on a different laptop? If so, could I re-create the installation USB using a Linux OS running on the Notebook and use that to reinstall?