I made this thread here http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/k t602975/so-i-wiped-my-hdd/#entry3915151 on the BOSD forum. But I think it applies to this forum just as much, because the version I have on it is windows 8.1 (although I haven't been able to get a windows 8 ISO, because microsoft makes me download windows 10 instead.
Summary:
- Tried to make a USB recovery drive with a) a USB drive (recognized as a local drive, a sandisk ) and a USB drive recognized as a removable drive(generic)
- The partition scheme was GPT for both. I formatted the disks in windows explorer then quickformatted using rufus, and made them with rufus
- I didn't try making it with media creation tool. It doesn't even recognize one of them, but I can try with the other one.
- I also tried making fatdog, some linux (i think) OS, with the appropriate settings and it still didn't boot
- I tried a DVD drive but it seems like my DVD drive is broken. Not a big deal as I rarely use it but it would have been helpful now.
- What next? I don't know. My boot settings are UEFI, but I also tried CMS just to exhaust all the options. My computer definitely sees the USB drives, they are listed in the BIOS and I set the priority to one, but it doesn't recognize them as boot disks.
Edited by accidentally, 23 January 2016 - 07:38 PM.