Boot menu only shows Hard drive

Image uploads are initially only visible to the person who posted them and to Dell moderators until they get "approved", so I can't see them, but what tool did you use to create your bootable flash drive?  It's possible that your system is configured to boot in UEFI mode (which you should not change) and your flash drive is only set up to support Legacy BIOS booting.  Make sure the flash drive is formatted as FAT32 rather than NTFS in order to support UEFI booting.  The Microsoft Media Creation Tool will handle creating a bootable flash drive that supports UEFI mode automatically if that would be easier.

i used the windows 7 usb tool. the boot configuration is legacy. i never changed it to uefi.

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@rohanasif wrote:
well ok... but as i said i never switched to uefi because i was fine with using legacy and windows 10 works fine right now... but the issue is that i cant find any options to boot from usb when i press F12 at boot

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@rohanasif  yes Windows 10 does work on Legacy mode, but UEFI is a better option for systems that support it.  Microsoft even provides an MBR2GPT tool to help people perform an in-place conversion of Legacy installations over to UEFI, but if you're planning a clean install then you don't have to worry about that.  I'm not sure why you're not seeing options to boot from your flash drive in the F12 menu, but as a first step toward troubleshooting, I would use the utility that Microsoft actually intends to be used for preparing Windows 10 installation media, not the utility they created for preparing Windows 7 installation media.

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@rohanasif wrote:

i used the windows 7 usb tool. the boot configuration is legacy. i never changed it to uefi.

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@rohanasif  if you're trying to install Windows 10, you don't want to use a Windows 7 tool.  You also should set your system to UEFI boot and enable Secure Boot, and do this before you start the Windows 10 install process.  Windows 7 doesn't take advantage of UEFI features, but Windows 10 does.  It tends to boot faster in UEFI mode, and Secure Boot is a nice protection against rootkits, but it only works when your system is in UEFI mode.  You can download the Microsoft Media Creation Tool from Microsoft's Windows 10 download page here.

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@rohanasif wrote:
well I've successfully created a fat32 windows 10 usb using a third party tool...as i cant boot from usb i cant use windows pe to run the mbrtogpt utility...will try to search for converting my current partitions and installation from mbr to gpt so that i can install in uefi mode...i'll get back to you... meanwhile can you do a little digging as to why i cant still see any options other than to boot from harddrive in the bios?

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@rohanasif   MBR2GPT can be run within Windows using the /allowfullOS switch, but if you're going to perform a clean installation, you don't have to worry about that because you'd be wiping your entire disk anyway as part of the clean install, and as long as you boot the Windows installation media in UEFI mode, it will automatically perform a UEFI installation onto your hard drive, without any conversion or any other prep work required beforehand.  Just make sure to delete all existing partitions on the disk.

As for the flash drive, how do you know you've successfully created a bootable flash drive if your system can't boot from it?  Have you verified that it's bootable from another PC?  If not, try that first.  If you find another PC boots from it successfully and it still doesn't work on this system you're working with, try a different flash drive, preferably a different model.  I've seen some flash drive and system combinations that simply don't work for booting for some reason, even though they work fine for regular data.  But while I'm happy to make suggestions, I'm not going to "do a little digging" for you.  To be clear, I am not a Dell support rep.  I'm just another forum user who volunteers some time to help others where I can by sharing knowledge and troubleshooting suggestions, but if my information and suggestions don't work out in this particular case, then hopefully someone else will be able to help or you manage to find the solution by doing some digging of your own.

well the usb does boot on other pcs... it doesnt boot on my laptop by F12...i have also tried other usb models on my pc but they also dont boot..

so my main concern is still booting from usb..

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@rohanasif wrote:

well the usb does boot on other pcs... it doesnt boot on my laptop by F12...i have also tried other usb models on my pc but they also dont boot..

so my main concern is still booting from usb..

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@rohanasif  ok, if you've validated that the flash drive you're working with is bootable on other PCs and even tried other flash drives, I don't have any immediate ideas for why the F12 menu wouldn't be working.  Unfortunately the screenshots you posted still aren't visible, so they probably haven't been reviewed and approved yet.  Just to make sure, do you have the flash drive already connected before you power on the system?  If you're accessing the F12 menu and THEN connecting the flash drive expecting it to appear in the list at that point, that won't work.

thanks for the reply...yes i connect the usb before powering on the laptop but it  still doesnt show