Hello, I recently was given two PC’s for free, and I’m having trouble setting them up. The computers are locked and encrypted. I downloaded windows onto a USB stick so I could factory reset them but whenever I select the USB as the boot device all it displays in the top left corner is “Missing operating system”. Now whenever I boot the PC thats all it displays won’t even load the old encrypted login.

  • DoubleReputation2@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    The “missing OS” is a sign that it either isn’t booting from your USB or that the USB is somehow corrupted.

    I would try to redo your USB drive, just to make sure, then you might have better luck.

    I’m pretty sure that is it.

    Some mother boards have only certain USB ports enabled during the POST sequence, so you might want to try a different port as well. I find that usually the upper most (closest to the CPU) port is the one that gets enabled first.

    ​

    If nothing else, SATA is actually Plug and Play, so you can disconnect the hard drive, to force the PC to boot from the only available media (USB). Although… kinda sketchy, yeah. Getting a USB/SATA adapter and taking the drive out and using that to connect it is definitely a safer option.

    How old are these PCs?