Here is how to create a bootable USB flash drive to install Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 on any computer. Legacy BIOS and UEFI are supported.
- Centos Make Bootable Usb From Windows 10
- Make Bootable Centos Usb
- Make Usb Bootable Windows 10
- Create Centos Bootable Usb
There are lot of methods are used to create Linux bootable usb flash drive on Windows 10 OS. Here, You can see the one of the easiest one using PowerISO software. It is one of the best iso software which helps to mount, create, edit, compress, extract and burn ISO image files. CentOS 7 is out and I wanted to test it on real hardware. Unfortunately most of current methods to transfer bootable ISO to USB key in MS windows environment do not work (see quote below) or boots, but does not recognize installation media in case of Fedora LiveUSB Creator (suggested in RHEL 7 Installation guide). These instructions will guide you to quickly make a bootable USB installation media for Mac OS X on Windows, this works with Yosemite and previous version of the OS.
Ubuntu has already an application called Finally boot using Bootable Windows USB Pen drive. Now you have created your bootable USB pen Drive for Windows 10 using USB drive installation is the effective way to install the Windows operating system with ease. For any issues during the setup to make bootable USB drive you can use the comment section below.
Startup Disk Creator, but this can only be used to make Linux bootable USB drives. To make a Windows bootable USB there is an application called WinUSBCentos Make Bootable Usb From Windows 10
but it hasn't been updated for a while.The following guide has been updated and works on any Linux distribution as long as it has GRUB and GParted installed and can make bootable USB for any Windows version newer than Vista: Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. UEFI boot is only supported for Windows 7 x64 and newer.
Before starting, let's mention that there are two types of boot methods. There is the MBR code type where the bootable executable is stored in a reserved section at the beginning of the storage device. And there is the EFI type, where the boot loader executable file is stored at a standard path in an FAT32 filesystem.
You must decide in advance what you will use. There are some variables for each boot type.
If you have no idea what to use, the most common setup that works with unmodified Windows sources, is
msdos
partition table with fat32
filesystem and flag the partition with boot
. In this way you will get both an MBR and UEFI bootable drive.Partition table | Filesystem | Partition flag | |
---|---|---|---|
MBR bootable | msdos | ntfs / fat32 | boot |
UEFI bootable | msdos / gpt | fat32 | boot / msftdata * |
*
UEFI can only boot FAT32 drives! If you need to make an NTFS UEFI bootable flashdrive to remove the 4 GB maximum file size restriction of FAT32 see this: UEFI NTFS: Bootable Windows USB from Linux.msdos
should be flagged with boot
and gpt
should be flagged with msftdata
.If you prefer, here is the video version of what is about to follow:
1. Format USB drive
This is the first step. GParted has a nice GUI and it is easy to use for this. So, plug in your USB flashdrive and start GParted (root permissions required). Select the USB drive and unmount it, otherwise you won't be able to format it.Warning! Selecting the wrong device will result in data loss!
GParted main window. The first thing to do is select the USB drive.
Make Bootable Centos Usb
Right-click the USB drive partition and select Unmount
You must re-create the partition table by going to the Device menu then select Create Partition Table. Choose msdos
(or gpt
if you want an UEFI only bootable drive) and click Apply. Right click the unallocated space and select New. Make a primary NTFS
Make Usb Bootable Windows 10
or FAT32 partition and give it a label too. The label must be as strange as possible because the bootloader will identify the bootable partition by this and you should not usewindows
like I did in the video! If the filesystem is FAT32 use only uppercase letters. For example: WUSB1840
would be a good label (W
for Windows, USB
for USB flash drive and 18:40
is the time I was writing this). Remember the label as you will need it later.If you have a customized Windows with
install.wim
larger than 4 GB you should definitely go for NTFS. Otherwise, if you choose FAT32, you could get the flashdrive bootable from UEFI too.New partition dialog
Apply all pending operation from Edit menu - Apply all operations or click the button on the main window.Right click the partition and choose Manage flags. If you chose the
msdos
partition table tick boot
. If you chose the gpt
partition table, msftdata
should already be checked.2. Copy Windows files
Quit GParted and use the file manager to copy all files from Windows ISO to USB stick. Mount the ISO using Open with - Disk Image Mounter (if you use Nautilus as a file manager). If that fails you can use Furius ISO Mount and loop-mount the ISO.Select all files Ctrl+A and Copy to USB drive which will be automatically mounted when you click on it at
/media/<username>/<drive_label>
.After the copy process is finished, look in the USB root folder for the boot directory. If it is uppercase, rename it to lowercase.
3. Make it bootable
If you used NTFS filesystem and MSDOS table, only method A is available. If you used FAT32 and MSDOS table, you can apply method A, B or both. If you used GPT partition table, only method B should be followed.A. MBR bootable
GRUB will be used for that. Open a Terminal and run:Replace:
/media/<username>/<drive_label>
with the path where USB drive is mounted;/dev/sdX
with the USB drive, not the partition (e.g./dev/sdb
)
Warning! Selecting the wrong device (
Wait for it to finish. If everything is OK, you should see:/dev/sdX
) may result in bootloader corruption of the running operating system!Now, create a text file and write the following in it:
Replace
<USB_drive_label>
with the label from step 1 (you can place it between quotes if it contains a space, although it is not recommended to use spaces in drive label). Save the file as grub.cfg and put it on the USB drive in the boot/grub folder.That's it. The USB drive is now bootable from BIOS and can be used to install Windows on your PC. The first time you boot from it in MBR BIOS or CSM mode select
Start Windows Installation
.B. UEFI bootable
Not all Windows versions are supported. Windows 7 on 64 bits, Windows 8 and newer versions should work.After the copy process is finished, look in the USB root folder for the efi/boot directory. If there's a bootx64.efi or bootia32.efi file there, then you're done. You can boot from your USB in UEFI mode.
Create Centos Bootable Usb
If the OS you are making a bootable USB for is Windows 7, browse the efi/microsoft folder and copy the entire boot folder from this path one level up in the efi folder. Merge folders if boot already exists.
Here is what to do if you don't have the bootx64.efi file in efi/boot folder. Browse the mounted Windows ISO image into the sources folder. Open install.wim (or install.esd) with your archive manager (you will need
7z
installed). Go to the path ./1/Windows/Boot/EFI
and extract the file bootmgfw.efi anywhere you want. Rename it to bootx64.efi and put it on the USB drive, in the efi/boot folder. If you can't find bootmgfw.efi in install.wim then you probably have a 32 bit Windows ISO or other types of images (recovery disks, upgrade versions).You can now boot from your USB in UEFI mode.
Errors
1.modinfo.sh
doesn't existInstall the
grub-pc-bin
package with sudo apt install grub-pc-bin
and run the grub-install
command again.2. Embedding errors
If you get embedding errors (something like
filesystem 'x' does not support embedding
or Embedding is not possible
), be sure you are installing GRUB to USB device and not USB partition. Most likely you typed /dev/sdb1
instead of /dev/sdb
(sdb
is just an example here). If it still doesn't work, try zeroing the USB drive (at least some sectors at beggining) or use a different USB flash drive.3. Blocklists
Sometimes, GRUB will not want to install on some flash drives. Try to force it by adding
--force
argument to the grub-install
command.4. Alternate root partition selection
The root partition selection may fail if your USB flash drive partition has the same label as one of the partitions on the target computer. The best way of setting the root partition is by UUID.
Launch again GParted and select the USB flashdrive. Right click the partition and select Information. Note the UUID field.
In grub.cfg, replace the line:
with:
where you will replace
<drive_UUID>
with the UUID you got from GParted.Still getting errors? If you want an useful answer, please post a comment with the complete
grub-install
command and the error message.Links
- Grub2/Installing. Ubuntu Documentation, Community Help Wiki.
- Installing GRUB using grub-install. GNU GRUB Manual 2.00
- search command. GNU GRUB Manual 2.00
- GRUB bootloader - Full tutorial. Dedoimedo.com
- Curtis Gedak. GParted Manual.
- Manjaro Wiki. Some basics of MBR v/s GPT and BIOS v/s UEFI
- Manjaro Wiki. UEFI - Install Guide
- eightforums.com. How to Create a Bootable UEFI USB Flash Drive for Installing Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1
- Rod Smith. A BIOS to UEFI Transformation
- Daniel B and duDE answers on Do (USB) drives need a master boot record to boot in UEFI mode? available at SuperUser.com (CC-BY-SA 3.0)
- Thomas Krenn. Creating Windows UEFI Boot-Stick in Windows
- Wikipedia. UEFI Booting
- Wikipedia. UEFI System Partition
- Jonathan de Boyne Pollard. The EFI boot process
- TheNetZ. Answer on Can I use Ubuntu to write a Windows 7 ISO to USB? on Askubuntu.com (CC-BY-SA 3.0)