Reinstallation causing No bootable device, Acer Laptop

I have just reinstalled the OS on 2 of my computers but am having a very difficult time with my old acer laptop. I have already read many guides and spent many hours trying to resolve this. I really don't know much and should have taken some notes before but felt over confident. There doesn't seem to be many options in the BIOS.

Product Name: Aspire 5742Z
System BIOS Version: V1.07









I am booting from a USB flash drive I have tried many different variations to get it to show the installation but nothing. I can't figure out or understand what a UEFI but since I do not see any mode for CMS I assume it must be UEFI. I have made a bootable fat32 usb and followed directions from here but cannot fix the problem.

UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with


I'd also like to install windows 8.1 on the machine but am confused with how UEFI can only read fat32. fat32 only allows 4gb image size but my windows 8 image is larger. This is why I am trying windows 7,

All help be very appreciated!!

EDIT: I took the hdd out of my laptop and plugged it into my desktop. From there I was able to install windows 8.1 and boot from desktop. However upon plugging back into the laptop it gave the same problem. I am not sure what I did wrong but when I had began was able to get the bootable usb to start windows 8 installation on the laptop. But it was failing at about 33%. Now neither windows 7 or 8 will.

I see no evidence you have UEFI and if you did you would need to boot the stick as a UEFI device to install it.

So format the stick normally, Set hard drive as first to boot in BIOS set up, Then trigger the stick to boot using the one–time BIOS boot menu key.


Everything is here to get and keep a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7. Step one shows you how to confirm your installation media and correctly format the stick.

the best thing to do at this point is get a new windows install :sad: