did i brick my laptop?

[Alexia]

i got this old laptop that i wanted to reformat to see if it'll make it work any faster but after erasing the disk i'm now unable to install windows on it.
in more detail: i took out the disk, plugged it in to my desktop, formatted to ntfs, put it back into the laptop, made a bootable usb with windows 10, adjusted the boot settings in bios (you know, all the usual pre installation stuff) and then instead of "press any key to boot from usb or dvd" i got the blinking underline in the top left corner.

i made sure all the boot settings are correct and that the usb was recognized by the system, i tested the usb on my desktop, tried every solution found on google, but i still ended up seeing the blinking underline in top left corner.
then i decided to try my trusty old windows 7 dvd and got a different message that said something like "insert proper boot device and try again"

i reformatted plenty of computers and never had something like that happen. actually, i feel a bit embarrassed asking for advice but i really wanna get that laptop back up and running so i can sell it

 

[GabeG30]

hey Alexia what you can try is to is to
1a also check how you made the USB drive if you are using win 10 you can use a program called Rufus to make the flash-drive bookable.
1. put the hard drive back into the desktop like you did disconnect any internet cables from the desktop we just want to get windows installed
2. let windows install just click custom and click next then let windows do its thing
2a if windows did install correctly remove hard drive from desktop put back into laptop see if it boots if it does connect it to the internet to let all apps and drivers download.
3. if you are seeing any error messages such as backup and replace drive that means the hard drive is failing.
I hope this helps Thanks Gabe.

 

[tiny]

Did you get the laptop working, Alexia?

i got this old laptop that i wanted to reformat to see if it'll make it work any faster but after erasing the disk i'm now unable to install windows on it.
in more detail: i took out the disk, plugged it in to my desktop, formatted to ntfs, put it back into the laptop, made a bootable usb with windows 10, adjusted the boot settings in bios (you know, all the usual pre installation stuff) and then instead of "press any key to boot from usb or dvd" i got the blinking underline in the top left corner.

You may need to press a key (like ESC, F1, F2 or F11) to bring up a boot menu to get the machine to boot the USB. Otherwise, that kind of boot-freeze with a blinking cursor sounds like the USB image isn't working. As Gabe says, Rufus is popular, but I've always used Balena Etcher to write ISO images to USB sticks. I'd try one or the other to see if that creates a working, bootable USB stick.

I vaguely remember that Win10 wanted to create recovery and system partitions automatically during installation. It think I struggled to install it on a drive that I'd already partitioned. And I might be wrong, but I think the version of NTFS that Win10 uses supersedes Win7's version.

So... maybe, re-write the USB image, wipe the drive partitions and try again?

 

[Alexia]

You may need to press a key (like ESC, F1, F2 or F11) to bring up a boot menu to get the machine to boot the USB. Otherwise, that kind of boot-freeze with a blinking cursor sounds like the USB image isn't working. As Gabe says, Rufus is popular, but I've always used Balena Etcher to write ISO images to USB sticks. I'd try one or the other to see if that creates a working, bootable USB stick.

I vaguely remember that Win10 wanted to create recovery and system partitions automatically during installation. It think I struggled to install it on a drive that I'd already partitioned. And I might be wrong, but I think the version of NTFS that Win10 uses supersedes Win7's version.

So... maybe, re-write the USB image, wipe the drive partitions and try again?

oh come on dude did you even read everything i wrote? i already did all that crap in the boot menu and nothing was wrong with my usb. i did use rufus and tested everything on my desktop where it booted up no problem (as i already said)

so again, i did everything by the book and nothing worked. even the win7 dvd wouldn't boot (yes i did change the boot settings to dvd, im not a moron) which means there's a different issue that i can't figure out

 

[depends4me]

Hey, he was just trying to help. Reading your posts, my gut reaction is that hard drive died and/or the laptop wasn't honoring the boot device in the way you expected. Does the hard drive function normally in the desktop? I will admit to not knowing much about Windows 10, but would think an incompatibility would result in more than a flashing cursor.

Edit: I suppose you could do worse than resetting the BIOS config to factory defaults.

 

[tiny]

Hey, he was just trying to help.

I know! lol

Apparently most BIOSes won't boot in UEFI mode from an NTFS-formatted USB partition. FAT32 might be worth a try instead.
Or maybe it's an issue with Secure Boot. Does the laptop boot if you disable Secure Boot?
And did you select "GPT partition scheme for UEFI" in Rufus?

 

[Alexia]

forget about it. you're all just telling me to try everything i already said i tried