Clean Win 10 install using USB drives fails

Hi,
The M.2 memory C drive (on mother board) wore out on my Dell XPS 8930, and totally failed. I replaced it with a new 500 GB M.2 SSD, obviously the recovery tools on the PC are non-existent. So I turned to USB drive recovery methods, and have struck out on all counts.

I created four USB recovery drives:
1. I made a recovery USB drive at time of purchase.
2. I recreated new recovery USB drive (formatted x Fat) using Dell’s Support Assist OS Recovery tool
3. created a drive with only the Dell.com Win10 ISO file (formatted x Fat)
4. created a drive with only the from Microsoft.com , downloaded ISO image file onto USB drive (formatted x Fat)

I have used "Recover from a drive" choice for all four USB drive options mentioned above and receive "Unable to reset your PC.  The system drive cannot be found.”

I used the Advanced option - System Image recover for ISO image, and used both the Microsoft and Dell ISO files on USB drives, and get a “Windows cannot find a system image on this computer” Using the "select a system image" option, I land on the "re-image your computer" screen. There I hit refresh, and the system cannot find either ISO files. Using the advance option, install a driver, both files on two separate USB drives are clearly there. I do see that this tool assumes the image is on a DVD

I read at
https://www.extrafudge.com/site/2016/03/dell-recovery-disc-not-working-unable-to-reset-your-pc-the-system-drive-cannot-be-found/
That needed to install new Intel firmware so that the system would recognize the M.2 drive. I did that, and no luck.

On UEFI settings, "Enable USB Boot support" is [enabled] .

Obviously I'm missing something! Any help is appreciated