but none of the solutions worked for me. What I am trying to do is load dban, so I can fully wipe the disk, as the person I am doing this for downloaded some software that allowed remote access to his machine from (apparently) Microsoft. The only usb I could get to work was the windows installation usb. Upon starting setup, I deleted all partitions of the hard disk, but when I clicked on new, it seemed to create the same partitions again (4 including a recovery partition) and I suspect the software has got back on the machine again, because he set up a password and then that password did not work again when he tried to login again. Also the supposed Microsoft rang him again , probably realising something was afoot. If I could boot from a linux usb I would do the old switch with cmd.com and manu and issue the command net user etc, but I can’t and like I say I cannot boot from a dban usb (or indeed anything other than the windows install usb), which is what I originally wanted to do to make sure the pesky software did not try and re-install itself. The computer has no cd drive and when I connected an external usb one, it recognised it was attached but did not come up as a boot option.

I have tried to create the dban usb using rufus and formatting to fat32, as one of the comments suggested, but this does not work. When you press esc to bring up the boot menu and select the usb device it just flicks back to the same menu.

As you will see from the images, there is no legacy usb support and I have disabled fast boot and changed the boot order to attempt to boot from usb (but again, you’ll notice the image where I’m saving and exiting, it shows the boot override as booting from the hard disk again). I have switched off secure boot, but no option to enable csm is there.

⟐ Commented October 26, 2020 at 0:17 MST

⟐ Answered April 30, 2025 at 15:55 MST

Okay, thank you. I will try to do it again.

here’s the current state of my laptop

i really don’t know what i did wrong but thank you so much for helping

I tried to turn it on but nothing happens. Is it possible that shorted out the motherboard? thank you so much, mike for the help.

I think this is what causes all the problems. I’m so sorry that I’m so stupid. I applied hot glue gun to attach the new keyboard and they’re so many glue tips that putting the pressure on the motherboard. maybe that’s what makes the laptop won’t start. I’m so sorry for the inconvenience. I really hope that I can find a way to revive this laptop again. thank you so much for helping, mike.

⟐ Answer accepted July 02, 2021 at 19:21 MST

⟐ Answer accepted December 10, 2020 at 7:10 MST