Acer AN515-54 won't find bootable device for a fresh Windows install

I was having the "no bootable device" problem and tried everything I could google before deciding to go for a fresh Windows install, but the thing is I just can't boot my PC using a USB flash drive with windows on it.
The USB device won't show on the bootable options in bios. Here's what I tried so far.

Disable safe boot
Make a UEFI compatible USB flash drive
Make a GPT partition for bootable flash drive
Make a MBR partition for bootable flash drive
Formatted USB flash to nfts, fat32
Tried to boot USB Flash on another PC (and it worked just fine, so the flash isn't the problem).

When I access the BIOS, if I enable secure boot I can select files as trusted for executing, and in this tab I can choose files from the USB flash drive, which means the computer is reading the flash but for some reason can't boot from it.

Has anyone come across this issue? How did you fix?

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Alejandro_AC

Hi @leonardojpy if you did not create the USB with Microsoft's own tool, do it, I leave you the ISO download pages with the procedure and the tool, since you do not specify if it is Windows 10 or 11, I leave you both:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11

All the best.

leonardojpy

Thank you very much for your reply. I'll try it.

I just cloned the SSD (with Win 10 installed) from my working computer into an external SSD I had at home, plugged the cloned Windows into my laptop and had it wiped clean using the Windows restore feature. Now the laptop is repairing and I'll try to reinstall Windows on the laptop's internal SSD using the windows on my external SSD, I hope this works 🤣🤣🤣

I'll get back with the results once it's finished.

Alejandro_AC

You already mentioned how everything is going.
Greetings.

leonardojpy

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1279699#Comment_1279699

@Alejandro_AC sadly using the Microsoft tool didn't work either, but the quoted message above fixed it!!! A step-by-step of what I did to get it working in case someone has the same issue (you need another working PC):

I used a software called Macrium to clone a WORKING version of windows from my desktop into an external SSD, then I plugged this SSD into the laptop and I could boot windows with the exact same information as in my desktop (it was cloned after all, lol). Then I reset this cloned version to factory reset using windows restore feature (wiped EVERYTHING) and cloned this recently reset OS into the main SSD on my laptop.

Took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to use this Macrium thing and it works just fine (it's a paid tool but they offer a 30 days trial which I used to get it done).

It was somewhat of an ugly solution but it worked. I spent more than a day trying to get it fixed and this was the only thing I could think of to get it working.