Can't Boot from Windows Password Reset CD or USB Drive?

Can't boot up your computer with Windows password reset CD or USB drive? Are you seeing a black screen with error message such as "Boot media failed" on booting? Or the computer just ignore the password reset bootdisk and boot up directly from your local hard drive?

So you are having problems booting up your computer. Well don't freak out there are many things that can cause this to happen some of which are not hardware failures. Just a quick rundown of some things you might see if you are trying and failing to boot up from the password reset CD/USB drive.

Boot up Troubleshooting Guide

When you boot from a CD/USB drive, what you're actually doing is running your computer with a small operating system that's installed on the CD, DVD or USB. More often than not, the boot up failure would be a problem with your BIOS settings or you haven't burned the disc correctly.

• Once you've downloaded the Zip archive of PCUnlocker utility, right-click on the file and then choose Extract All from the context menu. After extracting, you'll find the pcunlocker.iso file. Just copy this file to a CD or USB and it won't work! You need to burn it to CD or USB drive using ISO2Disc tool.
• To get your computer to boot from password reset CD/USB drive, you need to go into BIOS and change the boot order. At the moment of powering on your computer, you'll see an option to enter BIOS Setup Utility. Depending on the manufacture of your computer, you can press Del, F2 or other key that is listed on screen to access the BIOS.
• Once in your system BIOS, look under the Boot menu to find the Boot Device Priority option. Choose CD-ROM or Removable Drive as the first boot device. Press F10 to save changes. If you still can't get into BIOS, please refer to our another guide: How to Set Your Computer to Boot from CD or USB Drive.
• If you have changed the boot order and the password reset CD/USB drive still won't boot up your computer, please check if the UEFI Boot Mode and the Secure Boot options are enabled in BIOS. You need to switch the boot mode from UEFI to Legacy and disable the Secure Boot option by following this guide: How to Set PC to Boot with Legacy BIOS Mode Instead of UEFI Mode.

After going through the troubleshooting procedures above, your computer should be able to boot from Windows password reset CD or USB drive.