How to make a bootable USB flash drive of a Windows installation ISO image from Linux Mint

[taxedserf]

Linux distributions generally don't create bootable images of Windows installation ISOs. This is because Windows images have specific configuration that the typical Linux disk image writer wouldn't typically want to know about.

As at Oct 2021, this applies to Linux Mint. Linux Mint, Cinnamon edition, ships with apps Disks (gnome-disk-utility 3.36.3, UDisks 2.8.4) and a USB Image Writer embedded in Nemo 4.8.6.

Linux Mint's default tools will not tell you that they cannot create Windows installation bootable USB flash drives. You will be able to create a bootable USB flash drive, but they won't work. When you poke such USB into a machine, then switch the machine on, the machine will recognise the bootable USB flash drive... then do nothing. You'll sit in front of a black screen with a flashing underline cursor in the top-left of the screen, waiting for Christmas. Not the desired outcome.

Worse, there are numerous websites out there which will tell you that Linux distributions (generally) can create Windows bootable USB flash drive without issue. Perhaps this was true in the past, but today it is fake news. For Windows 10, the bootable image must be configured in a particular way by an app that knows precisely what to do. The tools that ship with Linux Mint do not configur the image as Windows 10 requires to be bootable as Windows 10 installation media.

The solution is to use a third party tool that configures the Windows installation ISO image correctly, resulting in a properly-bootable Windows installation USB flash drive.

There are two third party tools for this job:
WoeUSB-ng - https://github.com/WoeUSB/WoeUSB-ng
Ventoy - https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
(there might be others.)

Ventoy is a sophisicated tool to convert a single USB flash drive into a multi-boot device. The idea is that you install Ventoy onto the USB, then copy the ISO images - Windowses, Linuxes, whatever elses - into the Ventoy mount of the USB partition. When you then poke the Ventoyed USB into a machine, then switch the machine on, the machine reads the USB, boots up in Ventoy, presents you with a list of ISO images, you select one, then Ventoy passes over to the selected ISO. Ventoy is available for Windows hosts and Linux hosts, with the latter offering both command line and graphic user interfaces.

WoeUSB-ng is an easier tool (especially for home users), because it creates one bootable image on one USB device. It offers both a command line utility and a graphic user interface. As per the instructions on its Github page, install the dependencies, then install the app itself.

balenaEtcher is one tool that that suggests the use of WoeUSB, the predecessor of WoeUSB-ng. balenaEtcher will show the recommendation on-screen when it realises that you want to create Windows installation ISO as a bootable USB flash drive.
https://www.balena.io/etcher/

The above was tested the hard way in Oct 2021.

[sparkery]

Thank you. Very useful topic. I have wasted a lot of time with non-booting USB's from unetbooting and the like. I'm not all that tech-savvy at 73 years old. In the end I normally go to windows and use Rufus. I have got Ventoy working now and I'm looking forward to an opportunity to use it.

[RobertLihet]

Thanks a lot! After several reboots, I've got the brilliant idea to search on Linux forums. Mine doesn't have any problem, went on Linux Mint, without any errors.
Have a great one!

[Phreaky1221]

This is an old post now, but just wondering if either of these options will likely work with windows server edition, either 2019 or 2022?