MacOS – dd cloned NTFS partition will not boot from flash drive

bootcampmacosntfspartitionwindows

I have a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.10 and a Windows 7 Boot Camp install.

I just bought a 64 GB flash drive that I would like to put a bootable copy of Windows on, to reestablish the hard drive as OS X only, and figured it would be easiest to just clone the BOOTCAMP partition that I already have.

I formatted the USB to GUID/NTFS and used dd to clone it:

dd if=/dev/rdisk0s3 of=/dev/rdisk2s2 bs=512 conv=noerror,sync

After 12 hours it finished, and does not work. Windows displays the partition as "RAW"

Anyone have any tips?

Best Answer

You cannot boot windows off a USB flash drive. You need a special type of flash drive then windows ultimate which comes with a USB bootable creation tool and a specialized USBkey. There are other methods with which to install USB bootable windows onto and I have tried them and they do not work.

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