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I have just built my first PC, and have encountered a problem.
I am at the UEFI firmware screen for my ASUS Z97A motherboard. I want to install windows.
My problem is that I do not have a CD drive. And I have tried to copy the files from the cd to a USB stick and boot it from there, and still no luck.
Any help will be much appreciated because I have been surfing the net for days and no found a solution.
Minor terminology fix but you want to "install" Windows not "download" it to the computer.
Your USB stick might be formatted using a drive type it doesn't support..
Try using a tool designed for this purpose like Rufus or Microsoft's own tool.
If I'm correct this motherboard would accept a bootable USB stick. I've used WinToFlash for many years now and installed al kind of versions of Windows. You can download it here follow the steps to create the bootable USB stick. Yes you will need an ISO or DVD of the Windows version. If, however, you want to install windows 7 you will need to disable UEFI, UEFI only works for windows 8 and 10.
Another option I would suggest is to always have a USB drive on hand, since the BIOS will generally load up the USB CD/DVD drive (in some cases it may not depending on the settings).
This really comes in handy, otherwise take the CD drive out of one computer and stick it into your new one temporarily if you can. If not, you will have a hard time trying to find something to boot to USB without an OS being installed on it.
It's always more trouble than it is worth if you try something other than a CD (for a fresh install), because of issues like those. CD drives are usually only like $15 depending where you get it, but a USB drive can be moved around easier.
