Windows – How to create a bootable windows USB from Mac for Dell Inspiron 14

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My friend had an issue with her windows laptop and she asked me to help. The laptop cannot boot properly anymore so I wanted to reinstall Windows from usb. I tried to restore but it didn't work.
Since I have a Mac, most tools to create a bootable USB don't work.

I couldn't use Boot Camp Assist (as most howtos suggest) because it didn't show the option to "burn" an USB on my system and I didn't want to install Xcode hoping to change that.
I "burnt" my usb using dd but I couldn't convince the laptop to boot from it.
So after some more research I found unetbootin and an howto that suggests to erase the usb and formatting it using fat32 and then "burn" the iso using unetbootin. It ALMOST worked – windows installer starts but then complains about "cannot open d:\sources\install.wim 0x8007000d" (hope this reference helps other come to this question)
searching for this I found that this file is bigger than 4GB so FAT32 is not an option.
I reformatted the usb on Mac using exFAT and reinstalled the iso using unetbootin – but still no solution
When I format the usb with FAT32, I can see a UEFI entry pressing F12 on the Dell during startup – but now that option is not there. I can choose USB in the legacy menu but I just get to a blinking cursor.
Ideas? thanks!

Best Answer

You have to use the Windows 10 April Update 2018 version of the .iso found here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10ISO

Then, continue to format your drive as FAT32 and copy files as per: https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/01/18/tips-how-to-make-windows-10-install-media-on-macos-high-sierra

You will need FAT32 as UEFI boot requires it.

Rationale: The ISO for October 2018 has an install.wim is over the 4gb limit of FAT32 and April 2018's is not. I've scoured the internet for the past hour and this is the only solution I've found so far.

Installation

To install WoeUSB (GUI+CLI) in Ubuntu 14.04/16.04/17.10-20.04:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8 
sudo apt update  
sudo apt install woeusb

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

To install the WoeUSB command line tool snap package in all currently supported versions of Ubuntu open the terminal and type:

sudo snap install --edge woe-usb  
sudo snap connect woe-usb:removable-media

To launch the woe-usb snap package command line tool run the following command:

/snap/bin/woe-usb.woeusb

If you get a permission denied error click the Permissions button on the woe-usb screen in Ubuntu Software and toggle the permissions options from OFF to ON as shown in the below screenshot.

The WoeUSB GUI is easier to use than the WoeUSB command line tool. 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 WoeUSB (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.

Windows USB drive from Ubuntu failing repeatedly
WoeUSB Issues

Best Answer

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