Windows – Netbook will not boot from Windows 8 install USB stick

installationusbwindows-8-preview

I have an ASUS EEE 1000HE netbook that I am attempting to install the Win 8 release preview on. I have prepared a bootable USB memory stick (4Gb) using the "Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool" per instructions here: How to install Windows 8 from a USB Drive

I previously successfully installed Win7 on that netbook using the same tool (a couple of years ago). Currently the netbook has Ubuntu Linux installed.

When I select the USB stick as the only bootable device in the BIOS and restart the netbook, I get an error saying "Reboot and select a proper boot device…".

If I do the same thing on my big Toshiba laptop, it starts the Win8 installer as expected.

The facts:

  • The USB stick is bootable from another machine
  • The netbook has previously booted from and installed Win 7 from a similarly prepared USB stick
  • The netbook will not boot from the Win8 bootable stick
  • The version of Win8 is 32 bit, Release Preview ISO, downloaded from Technet site
  • I've tried formatting the stick as FAT32 and NTFS, neither work
  • I've tried the entire creation process from both a 32 bit and 64 bit Win 7 machine

Anyone have a clue why this isn't working?

Best Answer

Try pressing escape at boot and explicitly selecting the USB drive (not UEFI).

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