InsydeH20 BIOS does not recognize my bootable Windows 10 USB device

Question

I created a Windows 10 bootable USB device for my laptop, but the UEFI/BIOS doesn't recognize it in the Boot menu (while pressing F12). I'm booting with the UEFI boot mode, and my boot menu has only the Ubuntu boot entry.

Solution

Why doesn't UEFI/BIOS recognize a bootable Windows 10 USB in the Boot menu:

1. Bad USB flash drive. This could even be a new flash drive which I assume to be not corrupted. Try putting the bootable Windows 10 media on a different USB flash drive. It's worth a try if you have two or more USB flash drives.

2. Reformat the flash drive and reload the Windows media from an application for making a Windows 10 bootable USB.

3. Voltage irregularities that affect the smooth amount of voltage delivered from the motherboard to the USB flash drive. Possible causes of this are motherboard, power supply and even irregular house current. A very old computer is more likely than a new computer to have issues with the motherboard or power supply that affect booting from a bootable USB drive.

   Here are a few suggestions that worked when I tried them.

   1. Don't plug in USB devices like mouse and keyboard next to each other. Plug in one USB device at the front and one at the back.

   2. Disconnect unnecessary devices when booting the USB to reduce the power load, for example disconnect one HDD if there are two drives. If you have a 4-port USB splitter with switches on each port this is ideal, because you can turn the USB mouse off when you don't need it and you don't need to open the computer case to disconnect an internal drive in order to reduce the power load.

   3. A bootable USB drive will sometimes be able to boot if the same computer is moved to another location that has a more controlled source of current or connected to an uninterruptible power supply (UPS).

4. Some applications for making bootable Windows USBs seem to work better than others, for example WoeUSB in Ubuntu and Microsoft Media Creation Tool in Windows.