I just did what you’re doing a couple weeks ago, and was unable to get the Dell to boot off of a thumb drive. I ended up barely getting it to boot into windows and used the upgrade tool to install Windows 10 HOME edition using the following tool:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 — and put it on thumb drive of at least 4GB.
IF you can get it to boot off of a USB, find your Windows Vista key, boot off the thumb drive of the above Windows 10 image, FORMAT the laptop drive from that thumb drive, then install Windows 10 which will give you a clean install with none of the junkware installed. You will lose any and all data, but I’m pretty sure from reading your message that you’ve already kissed those goodbye. Windows 10 will find and install the appropriate drivers for video, sound, etc as you go through the 76 minute install process.
DO NOT install any other software until you have finished downloading and installing the Windows 10 updates. It will just save you a whole lot of time.
I know Vista is a POS, but it’s all I got to get me to the next OS.
I’m at least 2 hours into my second “Install” attempt and since the machine hasn’t completely seized up I figure I’ll let it run its course.
I’m getting the impression that although I selected a “A new Install” that would wipe all my old data, it’s still trying to reference components of what is left of the previous OS.