Can't boot from win7 USB installation stick in Windows 10.

[simen236]

First off, I can say that I have an Asus N56VZ latop. I wanted to try out Windows 10, so I downloaded the ISO from Microsoft and tried using Rufus to make a bootable USB stick. I gave up after it being stuck for half an hour at around 95% done, attempting to copy install.esd. Then I decided to use the Windows 10 USB/DVD tool, which went smoothly. When I looked at the boot menu in BIOS, I started worrying a little bit. The USB stick only showed up as UEFI. Anyway, I went on booting from it. In the installation process, I got a warning I could not install windows 10 to an MBR disk, so I went ahead and changed the GUID partition table disk to GPT. After that the installation went fine.

Unfortunately, I now have UEFI instead of BIOS. Now I can neither launch UEFI firmware settings nor BIOS. Booting is much slower than when I had windows 7. Therefore, I decided to go back to windows 7. I downloaded a windows 7 ultimate iso, and made a bootable USB stick with Rufus. The problem is that the stick is not detected, so I can't boot from it.

How can I solve this?

 

[PizzaTheHutt]

You are probably booting in UEFI - change the settings in your BIOS to boot with the CSM or just BIOS on it's own, depending on what the settings say.

 

[simen236]

As I said, I cannot enter Legacy BIOS or UEFI Firmware settings.

 

[PizzaTheHutt]

OK, I'd just reset the CMOS then, to completely reset your BIOS settings, to get back into the BIOS.

 

[Colif]

try holding f2 key in before powering up laptop, only release it once its on... that should get you in.

 

[simen236]

try holding f2 key in before powering up laptop, only release it once its on... that should get you in.

None of the f keys work

 

[simen236]

Bump

 

[PizzaTheHutt]

Have you reset the CMOS yet? That will be the best option at this point in time, since you cannot get into the BIOS or UEFI settings.

 

[simen236]

So, this is what my mobo looks like: http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachments/n56vz-mainboard-jpg.91867/

Is there a battery I should remove or a jumper I can use on there?

 

[PizzaTheHutt]

Looking at the picture, I can't see the battery - I would presume that it's on the other side of the motherboard.

Just remove the battery and wait for about 30 seconds before putting it back in.

 

[simen236]

OMG! The battery is actually on the other side of the motherboard. I need to unscrew the heatsink and the mobo completely to expose the other side. What a joke!

 

[tman1]

The OS you install has no bearing on whether or not you have UUEFI or BIOS - that is on stored on a chip on the motherboard and an OS installation does nothing to what's stored on that chip.

 

[simen236]

Yes, you're right. To be able to boot a USB stick from win10's boot menu, it needed to have FAT32 as file system and GPT partition style. I wiped the HDD and was able to launch BIOS again.