Why can I only use 2.48 GB RAM in Boot Camp (Win 8.1 Pro, 64-bit)?

Ok, followed the same procedure except this time formatting the stick as NTFS, no luck, same old "No bootable device" error message. That doesn't make any sense.

I did - so many times and just did it again, nothing. It doesn't even offer the EFI boot from the USB stick anymore.

I had the same idea, I tried 3 different USB sticks. The most promising suggestion to me is still the small boot partition on the internal hard drive - when you suggested that you said I should format it fat32 or exfat - today when we were talking about the USB sticks you said NTFS - so was it wrong to format the small boot partition with fat? (Though I'm almost sure I tried NTFS just out of curiosity)

no, I was actually doing it using Parallels... I can do it again using my Windows laptop but it shouldn't make any difference, right?!

Doesn't work, none of my 3 USB sticks shows up. That is more than strange, don't you think?!

Btw - I came across Winclone and read: Migrate external Windows system to Boot Camp

Does that mean I could migrate the Windows from my Windows laptop to Boot Camp?

Have you ever tried that before? Any downsides? Things to consider?

It seems that this is my last option. Any links / documentation that you know of (that are reliable)? Did it work for you?

and on the Windows laptop I need to run SysPrep which creates the image file?

Since I'm still entertaining other options: How come that I can modify my info.plist (from the BCA) and it always results in BC to crash though I run the

sudo codesign -fs - /Applications/Utilities/Boot\ Camp\ Assistant.app