Hello,
This isn't helpful. I'm not looking to run Windows PE. I am looking to create a boot drive for Windows. If Windows doesn't want to do that, I'll be more than happy to never use their **** software ever again. It's a simple request and the fact I have to dig through so many tools to just create one is complete asinine and is a very clear display of Microsoft's priorities and their complete disregard for power users. I've used multiple tools and none of them have worked because WINDOWS IS TRASH.
This is for all my fellow Linux users who removed windows but now are struggling because there is no way to create a Win11 Bootable USB .
https://nixaid.com/bootable-usb-windows-linux/
The Only way that worked after trying woeusb , 4 usb writes , dd command , Fedora writer , unpacking and copying the iso and ventoy.
Have Fun
Hello,
This isn't helpful. I'm not looking to run Windows PE. I am looking to create a boot drive for Windows. If Windows doesn't want to do that, I'll be more than happy to never use their **** software ever again. It's a simple request and the fact I have to dig through so many tools to just create one is complete asinine and is a very clear display of Microsoft's priorities and their complete disregard for power users. I've used multiple tools and none of them have worked because WINDOWS IS TRASH.
Hello, B D D_504
Welcome to Microsoft Community.
It's a simple request......
No, it's not that simple. While creating a Windows USB installer on Linux isn't too hard and there are plenty of guides online, running Windows directly from a USB on a Linux machine is tricky. It's not because Windows is "trash," but because portable Windows and Linux hardware often don't play well together. There are issues with driver compatibility, boot modes, and file systems.
Installing both Windows and Linux on your hard drive is doable, and there are lots of tutorials for that. You don't even need to completely format your drive—just back up your files. Alternatively, you could run a Windows virtual machine on Linux, which is easier and doesn't require formatting your drive at all. But running Windows directly from a USB smoothly and having it recognized by a Linux machine, without it being Windows PE, is asking a lot.
If you just want Windows without messing up your current Linux setup, consider partitioning your hard drive for a Windows VM. Otherwise, you'll have to stick with Windows PE on a USB.
Yuhao L
Microsoft Community Technical Support
Is Windows 11 installation media free?
Can Windows 11 installation media upgrade Windows 10 without losing files?
Which method is the best way to create Windows 11 installation media?
This one catches a lot of people! What’s happening is actually pretty simple, see…
Linux ISOs are usually so-called “hybrid” images, meaning the ISO is also a valid disk image. That’s why you can
ddthem straight onto a USB stick and they just work.Windows ISOs are another story, they are not hybrid the way we want them, as they got old-school DVD layouts. Yes, they have both ISO9660 and UDF file system structures also called “hybrid”, but that’s just another type of the hybrid FS adding even more confusion. At the end of the day, if you simply
ddthem, the resulting USB stick will usually boot, but the installer won’t find any drives because the boot media is missing the proper partition table, boot code, and filesystem layout Windows expects from the “real” bootable disk image.
There’s another caveat, and it’s the fact that install.wim file inside newer Windows ISOs is often larger than 4GB in size. FAT32 can’t handle that, so you end up needing NTFS or a split WIM file. Tools like Rufus and WoeUSB handle this automatically, but a straight dd obviously does not…
How to do it right? Good question!
Linux
WoeUSB
https://github.com/WoeUSB/WoeUSB-ng
sudo woeusb --target-filesystem NTFS --device Win10.iso /dev/sdX
Ventoy
https://www.ventoy.net
You install Ventoy on the USB stick once, then just copy/paste ISOs to it, and no more re-flashing every time you want a different version. I’d personally go with Ventoy, but it’s just lazy me.
Windows
Rufus is kinda “de facto” standard here. You pick your ISO, you select that USB stick, click “Start”, and it does all the voodoo behind the screen. Rufus handles all the quirks automatically, no questions asked.
Bottom line is, dd works great for Linux ISOs, but not for Windows ones. Use WoeUSB, Ventoy, or Rufus, depending on what OS you run, and you’ll have an installer that boots cleanly and sees your disks, which is exactly what you want!
Here the right way to make Windows installer USB flash drive on Linux:
- Using GParted or any other tool make the following on USB flash drive:
- Create GPT partition table.
- Create the first partition ~1Gb with fat32 file system with label "BOOT".
- The second with NTFS file system with label "INSTALL".
- Mount Windows ISO file.
- Copy the content except "sources" directory from Windows ISO to "BOOT" partition. The size of the content has to fit to the partition.
- Create "sources" directory on "BOOT" partition and copy boot.wim file to the "sources" directory.
- Copy all content from Windows ISO to "INSTALL" partition.
- Do
sync
That's all.
I've been trying to do a clean install of Windows through an install USB but the one I made using the ISO file is not working on my desktop, it stopped booting into Windows after I tried to reset it and now I'm trying to do a clean install through the BIOS. I don't know if there is a difference between boot drives made with the media creation tool over the ISO but it is worth a try. The only other thing I can think of is I've messed up he hard drive, and that's the one thing I hope hasn't happened since I can't afford a new hard drive right now. I tried Wine and that's not working.