Windows 10 stopped working and can't install from USB drive on an old laptop

[ivan3dx]

Hello everyone. I'm having trouble making this old laptop working again. I wanted to give it a cleanup and reinstall Windows on it, as I've done a million times with other PCs, even much much older ones, without trouble. I don't think most people will recognize the model because but:

-Model name: CX9114W

-CPU: Intel Atom x5-Z8350

-RAM: 2GB DDR3

-Storage: 32 GB eMMC

Firstly, I tried a system reset from Windows. I don't remember how the exact option was called, but at some point it asked me if I wanted to fully delete data, as to start fully new when the process finished. It didn't ask for any sort of boot drive or gave any warning at all, but told me that it would probably take a long time to finish. I didn't mind that, and it started going. After some time, an error appeared, saying that Windows installation failed, and told me to try again. But when I reboot... the same error window appears over and over, there's no way for me to boot.

 

No biggie, I thought, I'll take my Windows 10 USB drive and install fresh. Opened up the BIOS, I can see it as a boot option and when I tell it to boot from there... nothing. In fact, it tried to boot from the broken Windows again. I would try to remove the storage device or anything but it's soldered in and there are no ports (I opened it to check that among other things).

 

One other piece of information about the laptop is that it has an "EFI Shell" (Which I had to look up because I never encountered that before). I couldn't seem to try to get into it again after breaking Windows but I haven't really tried that much for that. Maybe that part is important somehow?

 

I there anything I can do? I tried messing around with the BIOS settings to check if anything would allow me to boot the Windows installer, which has worked for me in the past, to no avail. I'm getting desperate now and have no idea what I could do. I hope anyone knows the answer or has gone through a similar situation. Thanks.

[UnhingedIT]

Try the dedicated boot setup key. Most commonly its F12.

[SImoHayha]

for an extremely weak laptop like this with limited RAM. I would just install linux instead, such as Zorin OS light. Which is a Linux OS that mimics windows style/layout while using significantly less resources.

https://zorin.com/os/download/#lite
 

     did you try makinga bootable ISO using Rufus?

[ivan3dx]

3 hours ago, UnhingedIT said:

Try the dedicated boot setup key. Most commonly its F12.

Doesn't work

[UnhingedIT]

5 hours ago, ivan3dx said:

Doesn't work

Maybe its another key. Different models different keys.

If that doesn't work maybe its your USB. If you want to install windows there is a media creation tool that will format and mount windows image with ease. 

https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

[ivan3dx]

On 11/15/2023 at 4:15 AM, UnhingedIT said:

Maybe its another key. Different models different keys.

If that doesn't work maybe its your USB. If you want to install windows there is a media creation tool that will format and mount windows image with ease. 

https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Yes but I tried it on other PCs and it works. I called support for the brand (which I didn't want to do because that means paying) and they said I wouldn't be able to do it because it needs a special Windows boot drive. I don't know how true is that...

[Robchil]

6 hours ago, ivan3dx said:

Yes but I tried it on other PCs and it works. I called support for the brand (which I didn't want to do because that means paying) and they said I wouldn't be able to do it because it needs a special Windows boot drive. I don't know how true is that...

.... that's just dumb, if you have an empty drive windows will make that boot drive during setup..