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I've got a Windows 10 ISO that I burned on a USB stick using these instructions:

  1. fdisk -l (my usb is /dev/sdb)
  2. umount /dev/sdb
  3. Use gparted to format into FAT32
  4. dd if=/path/windows10.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M

But when I try to boot from the USB, it doesn't work.

I have checked the BIOS and it's by default to boot from USB (I can boot from my Debian and Ubuntu USB but not from the windows one).

Can't dd burn windows ISO?

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  • @Parto Already checked but i'll read it again i guess.
    – vinchaud
    Apr 4, 2016 at 13:21
  • Cool. The first answer specifically...
    – Parto
    Apr 4, 2016 at 13:23
  • 1
    No, dd cannot burn a windows iso file. You need a tool, for example mkusb or mkusb-nox, or to do the extraction manually.
    – sudodus
    Mar 29, 2017 at 7:16

2 Answers 2

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This is what worked for me in order to write/boot Windows 10 PE on as usb drive.

From https://askubuntu.com/a/487970/48496


Install GParted and GRUB on Ubuntu with:

sudo apt-get install gparted grub-pc-bin p7zip-full ntfs-3g

  1. Rewrite the partition table as msdos and format your USB drive as NTFS using GParted (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. Copy all files from mounted Windows ISO or DVD to USB drive using your favorite file manager.
  4. Go to USB drive and if the folder named boot has uppercase characters, make them all lowercase by renaming it.
  5. Install GRUB on USB:

    sudo grub-install --target=i386-pc --boot-directory="/<USB_mount_folder>/boot" /dev/sdX
    
  6. Create a GRUB config file in the USB drive folder boot/grub with the name grub.cfg.

    Write this into the file:

    echo "If you see this, you have successfully booted from USB :) <or whatever you want>"
    insmod ntfs
    insmod search_fs_uuid  
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid <UUID_from_step_2> --set root 
    ntldr /bootmgr
    boot
    
  7. Unmount the USB drive and restart your PC. Choose the USB as the first boot device in BIOS and start booting from it.

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1

use universal usb installer. I know. I did what you did.. however, I used the windows version. It works.. here is the link http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/

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  • I don't understand why you offering windows software, i don't have windows anywhere, and there's no way to install it without making usb bootable stick ..
    – holms
    Mar 17, 2018 at 22:50
  • Sheesh to dd? Sorry, but that is ridiculous. dd is one of the most direct and reliable ways to burn an iso, or any raw image format. Many gui programs are really just a dd front end. There is no reason to belittle someone for wanting to use and understand the actual lower level utilities instead of just gui nonsense.
    – Kallaste
    Mar 2, 2019 at 23:06
  • @Kallaste while I agree about the CLI vs GUI, do note that dd is almost completely obsolete these days. Why use dd to write a disk image to another disk when you can simply use cat instead?
    – terdon
    Mar 3, 2019 at 0:40
  • @terdon: dd is absolutely not obsolete. It is still used by sysadmins as well as forensic technicians for many tasks, and although other tools can duplicate some of its functionality (I have no idea why you would want to use cat over dd, but I am thinking of other tools), they cannot do everything by a long shot. dd is the only basic Unix tool in existence that can truncate or overwrite a file at any sector point that you specify. You can repair a corrupt partition table by writing zeroes to the first few bytes. You can modify data in place. Just yesterday I used dd to repair an MBR.
    – Kallaste
    Mar 4, 2019 at 2:25
  • When you need to write data sector by sector, I cannot think of a single tool that gives you finer control than dd.
    – Kallaste
    Mar 4, 2019 at 2:25

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