Edge Computing Division Users Forum

I'm attempting to install Windows 8.1 via USB and my best guess is that the intense pc is not recognising a NTFS usb drive.

I've flashed the BIOS to the most recent.
I've installed the ISO file to USB via WinSetupFromUSB, however as the ISO is 4GB+ I need to format the usb to NTFS.

Previously I've installed Linux Mint 16 from usb which worked fine but most of what I want to run is not easily Linux compatible hence the change to Windows. But the Mint 16 install worked with out a hitch.

Am I missing something obvious or is it having issues with NTFS?

I've change the BIOS boot order and usb has priority. The weird thing is that the BIOS even recognises the usb stick and calls it by name but does not boot to it.

I've tested the Bootable Windows 8.1 install usb on a laptop and it works ok?


Whats next?

Hey Windows 8.1 is a UEFI system only. It's not old bios. That would mean that the usb key would need three partitions. 1st UEFI. 2nd MSR. 3rd your NTFS.

The CD has a UEFI partition on it. When you boot the CD. you must boot it from the UEFI partition (where the boot loader is). Also, windows 8.1 won't install without secure boot on. I found with my intense pc that it did give me the option to boot UEFI disks from the boot drive selection menu in UEFI. But there was a novel work around. You can drop to the shell. It like a dos command shell prompt. You just change to the UEFI partition on the USB/cd drive and then type the command to launch the EFI boot loader directly. A EFI partition is just a formatted fat 32 with a unique marker flag. If you scan this forum for my user name emurach you should find a detail right from like 1yr back.

Thanks for the response emurach.

I've found your old post from a year ago and have I made the UEFI bootable Windows 8.1 usb as you mentioned. This seemed to work fine however I still cant get it to boot to the usb.

I've enabled the UEFI bootable in the BIOS and even tried turning off the Legacy boot but its still not reading the usb.

The priority boot for the USB is 1 and the it recognises the USB is there still but wont boot to it.

I've tried to load it via your SHELL method but it seems the directory structure for Win8.1 is different from 7 (ie step 5 doenst work).
I'm also getting an error when I type "ls" into the prompt

http://www.fit-pc.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 828#p16828

Any suggestions?