Iconia W3-810 can´t Restore from USB

I have an Iconia w3-810 and the Windows installed had a lot of problems. I decided to reinstall windows as I use to do it on every machine I had. I deleted all partitions and found the image discs online, used rufus to create the usb drive, and at the end I had 2 pen drives with the info. After the first one finish it starts asking for disc 2 and won't reconize the second Usb drive. Tried with an oficial Windows 8 image, but whent it reaches 100% and it's about to restart I get the error: "Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed."

I do not own an externa DVD unit and probably the main problem could be trying to find a double layer DVD to burn because the first disc is 6GB.

Can anyone help me out with this. I did all the steps posted on several threads and even followed the video explaining how to do it. Tried with secure boot on and off(that's the oficial documentation). I think the main problem is that table won't allow to save the boot record. I also tried fixing it through command line, fixboot, fixmbr rebuildbdc with no luck.

Thank you for your responses.

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billsey

The W3-810 came originally with Windows 8, so uses a UEFI boot. You should be able to create a Windows install flash drive from any of the 32bit images of W8 or W10 and install from that image. The issue with the two discs is that the installer is expecting them to have specific names and both with the same drive letter. When you boot from the Windows installer and it gets to the "where do you want to install" question make sure that all partitions are cleaned from the drive, including hidden ones, then choose the unallocated space for the install. It will create the needed EFI partition and populate it for you.

menendeze

billsey said:

The W3-810 came originally with Windows 8, so uses a UEFI boot. You should be able to create a Windows install flash drive from any of the 32bit images of W8 or W10 and install from that image. The issue with the two discs is that the installer is expecting them to have specific names and both with the same drive letter. When you boot from the Windows installer and it gets to the "where do you want to install" question make sure that all partitions are cleaned from the drive, including hidden ones, then choose the unallocated space for the install. It will create the needed EFI partition and populate it for you.

Thank you for your response.

Already tried that way, I said: "Tried with an oficial Windows 8 image, but whent it reaches 100% and it's about to restart I get the error: "Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed."

Deleted every partition all unallocated space cleaned, I even used the command line with diskpart and the clean command. I've been using windows since 3.1 and I can't even say how many times I reinstalled windows in my life, but this goes beyond my acknoledge. I tried with secure boot enabled too, I also tried fixing it through command line, fixboot, fixmbr rebuildbdc.

It seems like secure boot won't let me write the boot sector even when secure boot is disabled.

Thank you for your responses.

billsey

After the failure if you use the install flash drive to get to a command prompt, what does diskpart show for the partitions on the drive? There should be a 100MB EFI partition. You can assign a drive letter to it and explore with CD and DIR to see what's in there.

menendeze

billsey said:

After the failure if you use the install flash drive to get to a command prompt, what does diskpart show for the partitions on the drive? There should be a 100MB EFI partition. You can assign a drive letter to it and explore with CD and DIR to see what's in there.

List disk: Disk 1 Online 29GB

LIst partition:
1 Recovery 400MB
2 System 100MB
3 Reserverd 128MB
4 Primary 28GB

List volume
0 C NTFS Partition 28GB Healthy
1 NTFS Recovery Partition 400MB Healthy Hidden
2 FAT32 ESP Partition 100MB Healthy Hiden

Content:
400MB volume: no files
100MB volume: 2 folders Temp and EFI (Inside: Microsoft, boot)

The temp older has some files, but 2 files:
bcdinfo.txt with text: The boot configuration data store could not be opened. The system cannot find the file specified.

bootfailure.txt has an smiley face on it.

Thank you for your response.

billsey

OK, the 2nd partition is the EFI and FAT32 which is correct. Let's try rebuilding that, with a drive letter assigned to the EFI partition:

Type and run the command:

cd /d <drive letter>:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\

Type and run the command:

bootrec /FixBoot

menendeze

billsey said:

OK, the 2nd partition is the EFI and FAT32 which is correct. Let's try rebuilding that, with a drive letter assigned to the EFI partition:

Type and run the command:

cd /d <drive letter>:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\
Type and run the command:

bootrec /FixBoot

Already tried that and I tried again this time. I tried fixboot fixmbr rebuildbdc renaming bcd etc. I'm adding some screen shots

billsey

That is looking very much as if the drive has failed.

Unfortunately the drive is an eMMC and is soldered to the motherboard, so not replaceable.

menendeze

billsey said:

That is looking very much as if the drive has failed. Unfortunately the drive is an eMMC and is soldered to the motherboard, so not replaceable.

I used chkdsk some times with no errors.

Is any way to alter the recovery media files to think is only 1 dics and add all the files to 1 usb drive?

I've been trying changing rdc.dat and systemcd.dat info but still asking for disc 2