I'm building my first computer and all the hardware seems fine. However, when I check the boot settings, my external drive with Windows on it isn't showing up correctly. I noticed that the external drive does appear in the BIOS, but when I go to boot settings, it says "no bootable device found." I copied the Windows files directly from Microsoft into a folder on the external drive using another computer. It's plugged into the USB port labeled "boot." Do I need to use a completely empty flash drive that only has the Windows boot images and files from Microsoft to make it work? Thanks for any advice!
2 Answers
Yes, definitely. To properly boot from an external drive, it generally needs to be formatted as a bootable drive. The Windows Media Creation Tool is great for that, and you can find it on Microsoft's site. Just follow the instructions to create a bootable USB. Remember, this will erase whatever is currently on the drive, so use a fresh one if you can!
Yes, the link is legit! I’ll go there now.
It sounds like you're trying to boot from a drive that wasn't correctly made bootable. You can't just copy the Windows ISO onto your external drive like that. You should use a tool like Rufus or the Windows Media Creation Tool to set it up properly. Just a heads up, using those tools will wipe any existing data on the drive, so make sure you back up anything important!
Thanks for the tip! I'll make sure to grab a flash drive and use Rufus instead.
Got it! Rufus seems straightforward, I'll give it a shot.
Is the link to the Media Creation Tool on Microsoft's page? I would love to check it out before I start.