Acer Laptop Cannot See Windows 7 Flash Drive
Flash drives in our time have become an indispensable tool for storing and transferring information to a PC. Most personal computer users use flash drives to install Windows or Ubuntu. This is due to the fact that you do not need to write the image to disk, but you need to install directly from the USB flash drive.
In addition, now most laptop and computer manufacturers, such as Acer and Lenovo, produce desktop and laptop computers without optical drives, which further popularizes the installation of Windows from a bootable USB flash drive. When installing in this way, many users of laptops and desktop computers create situations where the BIOS does not see the bootable USB flash drive. In this article, we will try to understand in detail how to write the image to a USB flash drive, and also we will deal with BIOS settings for the correct installation of Windows and Ubuntu.
If you are faced with the fact that when you restart the PC your flash drive is not detected, then the first thing to do is make sure that the flash drive is really bootable. The fact is that just copying files to it is not enough.
over, if you have a “completely working” bootable USB flash drive, since you have already installed the system from it many times, then you are forced to disappoint: there are currently several types of boot systems and A flash drive running on one PC will not work on another. To succeed in this case, the system must be rewritten differently.
Therefore, the main part of the article contains detailed instructions for the correct recording of a bootable USB flash drive using various software. The rest of the article contains recommendations for setting up different types of BIOS.
Correctly creating a bootable USB flash drive for Windows
To create a bootable USB flash drive for Windows 7, you need to download a licensed image. You can download it on the official page www.microsoft.com/ru-ru/software-download/windows7. To record the image on a USB flash drive you will need a proprietary utility Microsoft Windows USB / DVD Download Tool, which can be downloaded at www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool. After installing the utility, you can begin to create a bootable USB flash drive. After starting the utility, a window will appear in which you must specify where the image is located.
After clicking the Next button, you will be taken to the device selection window for recording the image.
In this window, you need to click the USB device button, after which you will go to the choice of flash drives.
Having selected the necessary flash drive, click the Begin copying button. The process of copying installation files to a USB flash drive will begin. Also, be careful, as all previously stored files on the USB drive will be erased.
The inscription in the last window “Status: Backup completed“Will mean that your bootable flash drive is ready.
To install Windows 8.1, you must download the official utility MediaCreationTool at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media. By running the utility, you will be taken to the OS version selection window, in which you need to select the language, version and bit depth of the operating system.
In the next step, you need to select a device for recording Windows. In our case, it’s “USB flash drive“
The next step will give you the opportunity to choose a USB flash drive.
After that, the next step is to upload and write files to the drive. As with the previous example, all data on the flash drive will be erased.
The last window will notify you that the installation drive is ready.
To make a bootable flash drive for Windows 10, you need to download the utility MediaCreationTool from this page: www.microsoft.com/ru-ru/software-download/windows10. If you run the utility on Windows 7 or 8, the program will offer you two options: update or create installation media. You need to choose the second option.
The step of creating a bootable drive will be similar to the example for Windows 8.1.
Properly creating a bootable USB flash drive for Ubuntu 15
For Ubuntu 15, you need to download the UNetbootin utility from https://unetbootin.github.io. Having launched the program, you need to select the options as in the figure below and click OK.
Then the download and recording of files to the bootable flash drive will begin, in this case drive D.
In the final window, you will be prompted to restart the computer or laptop and boot from the USB flash drive.
BIOS setup for booting from a USB drive
Consider the example of loading the UEFI BIOS from a USB drive. For example, we will use the MSI motherboard. A58M-E33, which has the latest version of the UEFI BIOS. To enter the UEFI BIOS settings for the A58M-E33 motherboard, you must press the F11 key when starting up a laptop or desktop computer. You will see the boot menu in which you need to select a flash drive, in this case, “KingstonDataTraveler 2.0PMAP”.
You can also set in the options so that the flash drive is loaded immediately from the BIOS. To do this, when loading, press the Delete key. You will be taken to the UEFI BIOS main menu.
Then go to the menu “Settings\ boot “and put the flash drive in first place, as shown in the figure below.
Now your system will boot from the selected flash device. But if your PC or laptop is UEFI and the system does not see the bootable USB flash drive, then the image is incorrectly recorded Safe boot mode enabled (for how to fix, see the section below “How to configure UEFI to.”).
Booting from a USB drive on older computers
On older BIOS versions, you can also boot from a USB drive. For example, to boot from an old Acer laptop, you must press the F2 key at startup. Once in the Acer laptop BIOS, go to the “BOOT“.
Next, go to “Boot device priority”And put your boot device in first place.
Now, after saving, your Acer laptop will boot from the flash device. This configuration of the old BIOS is installed on most Acer laptops. Therefore, with other obsolete Acer laptop models, the setting will be similar.
USB stick for UEFI computer
If you buy a new computer or laptop now, it will certainly support the UEFI BIOS. Using the new UEFI BIOS offers many advantages, so a bootable flash drive must have support for UEFI systems.
If you will create a bootable USB drive for Windows 7, 8.1 using MediaCreationTool, then the UEFI system will support it. And with the utility Windows USB / DVD Download Tool for Windows 7, this option will not work.
Consider the option of creating an installation flash drive with support for UEFI systems for Windows 7. To do this, download the program at https://rufus.akeo.ie Rufus. Insert a USB drive before starting the program. After starting the Rufus utility, select the Windows 7 image. You can do this by clicking on the icon with the DVD disc. The program window will look like this.
If you have all the points that match, as shown in the figure, then boldly click the Start button, and then the file recording will begin.
After writing files, you can use a flash drive to install Windows on a UEFI system. You can also use Rufus for systems with ordinary BIOS. A notable feature of the Rufus program is the fast write speed of the image to the drive.
After reading this material, you can create bootable flash drives for Windows and Linux-like operating systems. And you will not have questions such as: why the BIOS does not have my flash drive or why Windows does not support the UEFI system.
How to configure UEFI so that the computer sees a bootable USB flash drive
There are some features of installing Windows 7 or XP on a PC with Windows 8 or 10. The latest versions (8 and 10) are configured for UEFI and GPT partition table, while the previous ones used MBR disk partition.
UEFI has a new feature “Safe boot», Ensuring the security of the system boot. A new level of security blocks booting from external devices, such as a USB stick and a CD drive.
Therefore, even if you make an exceptionally correct bootable USB flash drive, it still will not appear in the boot menu when you restart your PC or laptop.
To eliminate a similar cause, you can do the following:
- Make sure that your USB bootable USB flash drive is configured to work with UEFI (how to correctly make such a USB flash drive is described above).
- Disable “Safe boot”, and change “Boot Mode” to “CSM / Legacy BIOS Mode”.
Working with bootloader settings requires experience, we do not recommend that beginners perform such actions. We also recommend that you save all important data beforehand, as it may be lost.
To disable “Safe boot”, follow these steps:
- Restart your computer or laptop and go into BIOS.
- Go to the “BIOS Settings“.
- In the BIOS security settings, set the option “Safe boot“To”Disable“.
- Option “Boot mode“Translate to”CSM (Compability Support Mode) / Legacy BIOS” or “CSM Boot ». possible different options.
- Make sure that USB is the first in the boot sequence settings “Boot order“.
- Exit BIOS and save changes. “Save and exit ».
