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I'd like to create a Windows 8 bootable USB stick, but I don't have a Windows machine with me to do so.

• How To Create A Windows Xp Boot Disk

To create a Windows 98 boot diskette, click Start, Settings, Control Panel, double-click the Add Remove program's icon, click the startup disk and create the disk. Alternatively, to create a Windows 98 boot diskette manually from Windows, click Start, Shutdown, and choose the option to restart the computer in an MS-DOS prompt.

So how do I do it using Ubuntu?

11 Answers

WinUSB is old, obsolete, and outdated. It can cause problems on newer systems. You should be using WineUSB or other software in place of WinUSB.

This answer is, however, left here as-is for historical purposes.

Create a bootable Windows USB (Vista and above) from Ubuntu through WinUSB software.

Run the below commands on terminal to install WinUSB from a PPA,

installing WinUSB on EFI loaded Ubuntu will uninstall the grub-efi packages in order to install the grub-pc packages. It will make your system unbootable if you don't manually reinstall grub-efi package before rebooting.

To do the manual re-install do:

even other Linux distros as long as GParted and GRUB are installed.

Install GParted, GRUB, 7z, and NTFS on Ubuntu with:

For BIOS: MBR partition scheme

1. Using GParted, rewrite the USB drive's partition table as msdos, format it as NTFS, and then 'Manage flags' and add the boot flag.
2. In GParted, right click the USB partition and select Information. Copy the UUID somewhere as you will need it.
3. Mount your Windows ISO or DVD and copy all its files to the USB drive.
4. Go to the USB drive, and if the folder named boot has uppercase characters, make them all lowercase by renaming it.

5. Install GRUB on the USB drive.

   In the below command, replace /dev/sdX with the device (e.g. /dev/sdb, not/dev/sdb1) and replace <USB_mount_folder> with the folder where you mounted the USB drive (which could be like /media/<username>/<UUID>).

6. Create a GRUB config file in the USB drive folder boot/grub/ with the name grub.cfg.

   Write this into the file, replacing <UUID_from_step_2> with the UUID you copied down in step 2.

7. Unmount the USB drive.

8. Now to use it, restart your PC, and boot from the USB drive.

For UEFI: GPT partition scheme *

* Older Windows versions / editions may not be properly supported or not supported at all. I suggest reading the Microsoft UEFI Firmware page.

1. Using GParted rewrite the partition table of the USB drive as GPT.
2. Create a new primary partition and format it as FAT32.
3. Copy all Windows files (from mounted ISO or DVD) to the USB drive.
4. Look on USB in the efi/boot/ folder. If there's a file bootx64.efi (bootia32.efi) then you're done. The USB is bootable. Skip to step 7.
5. Otherwise, open sources/install.wim with the Archive Manager (you must have 7z installed) and browse to ./1/Windows/Boot/EFI/. From here extract bootmgfw.efi somewhere, rename it to bootx64.efi (or bootia32.efi for supported 32 bits OS [?]) and put it on USB in efi/boot/ folder.
6. If you're making a Windows 7 USB, copy the boot folder from efi/microsoft/ to efi folder.
7. Don't forget to unmount (safely remove) the USB drive. Select the proper EFI loader from your BIOS.

Source: My blog post about this can be found at Make a bootable Windows USB from Linux.

When properly used with a compatible target operating system, both of these methods should get you a bootable USB drive. However this does not guarantee successful installation of Windows.

Ubuntu 14.04 and later

WinUSB is a tool for creating a bootable USB flash drive used for installing Windows. Native UEFI booting is supported for Windows 7 and later images. WoeUSB is an updated fork of the WinUSB project.

Some third-party installers feature Windows installation images (/sources/install.wim) greater than 4GB making FAT32 as target filesystem impossible. NTFS filesystem support has been added to WoeUSB 3.0.0 and later.

To install WoeUSB (updated fork of WinUSB project) in Ubuntu 14.04/16.04/17.10/18.04/18.10/19.04:

To install WinUSB in Ubuntu 14.04/16.04/16.10/17.04:

This will install the WinUSB graphical interface and the WinUSB command line tool. WinUSB and WoeUSB support both UEFI and BIOS for FAT32/NTFS/ExFAT USB flash drives.

The WinUSB GUI is much easier to use than the WinUSB command line tool. To install a Windows ISO on NTFS partition and edit the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the device using the WinUSB and WoeUSB command line tool run the following command:Click the radio button to the left of where it says From a disk image (iso), browse to the location of the Windows .iso file, under Target device select a USB flash drive, open Disks application and check that the Device name in Disks matches the Target device in WinUSB (it should be something like /dev/sdX where X is a letter of the alphabet), and click the Install button to install to create a bootable Windows installation media on the USB flash drive.

Installing WinUSB on EFI-loaded Ubuntu will uninstall the grub-efi packages in order to install the grub-pc packages, so before you reboot run the following commands to repair grub:

The current UNetbootin boot chain is not compatible with UEFI and computers that come with a pre-installed copy Windows 8

You can use dd instead, while being careful in what you are doing:

• Replace sdX with the drive you want to use (in my case, sdg):
• This requires that your motherboard is able to boot from CDROM-USB.

If you want still to use UNetbootin, there are 2 (3) things that you will need:

1. Unetbootin
2. Gparted
3. Internet access to install all the above, the Windows ISO image and a USB stick with more than 4GB.

So, first, backup all the contents of your usb stick. Once that is done install gparted and unetbootin:

Now look for gparted in the Dash or type gparted in the terminal. Select your USB stick from the right dropdown list. In my case it's /dev/sdg, yours may be different. Remove all partitions and create a single big FAT32 partition with Gparted.

Once that is done, unplug and plug your USB stick so it gets mounted (you can also mount it from the same GParted), now execute Unetbootin, again, you can look in the dash or typing in the terminal. Select that you want to use an iso, look for the path your ISO is.

Mark the checkbox to see all devices, here you have to select the very same device you selected in Gparted, otherwise your data can be lost. Select continue. Wait for a moment and done. Restart your pc and select to boot from the USB.

Some answers are outdated, since WinUSB is not working anymore. But there is a working fork called WoeUSB.

Github: https://github.com/slacka/WoeUSB

It does not uninstall grub-efi anymore!

Ubuntu / Debian

Arch

Fedora

After installation, write the windows ISO with the following command:

(Replace the X in /dev/sdX with the letter corresponding to your USB. You can find which is the correct one in the program Disks.)

In Non-UEFI machines, we can use GRUB2 to make USB stick bootable.Then, we can use 'ntldr' command in the GRUB2 to boot Windows from USB.

• Enable the boot flag on the target partition of the USB drive. It can be easily done with the use of the tool called 'GParted'. It is a GUI tool for drive partitioning.
• If the installation image is an ISO file, mount it and access the files.
• Copy all the files to root of USB drive.

• Install GRUB to USB drive:

• Configure GRUB to boot Windows by placing the following file as '/boot/grub/grub.cfg' in the USB drive:

See complete answer at my blogCreating a bootable windows USB from Linux

mkusb-nox and mkusb version 12 can create Windows install drives

It seems difficult to find a linux tool that can create boot drives (USB sticks, memory cards ...) with Windows, so I added this feature to mkusb-nox and later on created mkusb version 12 with this feature. It works in all current versions of Ubuntu (and Ubuntu flavours: Kubuntu, Lubuntu ... Xubuntu) and with Debian Jessie. The created boot drive can boot 64-bit Windows in both UEFI and BIOS mode.

You get/update this new version of mkusb and mkusb-nox from the mkusb PPA via the following commands

See these links,

mkusb-nox can create a USB boot stick with Windows 7 - 10, but you have to cope with a command line interface.

Edit 1: New: mkusb version 12, the new version provides a graphical user interface for the same method. See these links,

mkusb-nox:

dus with guidus alias mkusb version 12:

Edit 2:

• A new improved version, mkusb 12.2.9, is available now via the standard (and stable) PPA.

  • It can install for BIOS mode also from installed systems running in UEFI mode.

  • Some minor but irritating bugs are squashed.

  • With the iso files, that I have been able to download, I can create these kinds of Windows install drives

    • Windows 7 installer that boots in BIOS mode
    • Windows 8.1 installer that boots in UEFI mode and BIOS mode
    • Windows 10 installer that boots in UEFI mode and BIOS mode

A simple 'Do it yourself' method

• A rather simple 'Do it yourself' method is described at the following links, and it has the same capabilities to create Windows install drives as mkusb.

  • If you don't like PPAs or if you want to 'Do it yourself' and understand the details, this method is for you.

winusb from the accepted answer is the only easy method I found.

However, there is no winusb package for saucy. You can however install the raring package by downloading it here and opening it with the software installer. It works with saucy.

You can use WinUSB for that to install WinUSB on your Ubuntu follow these instruction.

Okey, if you are from Ubuntu 13.10,13.04,12.10,12.04, then run this in terminal:

How To Create A Windows Xp Boot Disk

and if you are from Ubuntu 14.04 then run this in terminal:

WinUSB comes with a simple GUI with minimal options to go with, here is how to use WinUSB to make bootable Windows USB from Ubuntu. You can use any Windows ISO may be for XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 or any other.

1. Insert Flash Drive & Get your Windows ISO (I used Windows 10 Technical Preview) or insert the Windows CD/DVD
2. Start WinUSB and, nothing else really needs to be explained.
3. Select your Source, either ISO or CD Drive
4. Pick your Target (USB) Device. If it doesn’t appear, hit refresh and make sure it’s mounted.
5. Click on “Install” and enter your Password (required to mount devices and write directly to drives)

This is all you need to do to create a bootable Windows USB Stick

Source :How to install and use WinUSB in Ubuntu

For any one getting file limit exception using woeUsb , use terminal command

Instead of /home/uName/Downloads/Win10_1809Oct_English_x64.iso use your path to iso file and

Instead of /dev/sdb use your path do the flash drive .

For the sake of completeness, let me add instructions on how to create a bootable USB-disk from ThinkPad's UEFI/BIOS update ISOs. None of the above answers worked for me. (Perhaps there are similar problems with other vendors.)

1. Create an img file with geteltorito

2. Write the img file to disk. Using this exact block size is important.

protected by Avinash RajMay 6 '14 at 9:21

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