There are multiple utilities out there to help you create bootable Windows 10 USB on a Windows operating system. Easy ways are also around to create Windows 10 bootable USB on macOS. But how to prepare Windows 10 bootable USB on Linux?
Preparing Windows 10 bootable USB is not as difficult as it was a few years ago. Free utilities are available for Linux OS to prepare bootable USBs.
In this guide, we will see how to use a free utility called WoeUSB to prepare Windows 10 bootable USB on Linux.
NOTE: You cannot use a live Linux USB/DVD to create Windows 10 USB as you cannot install the required software when you are running Linux from live USB/DVD. So, you will need a properly installed Linux OS to prepare Windows 10 bootable USB.
IMPORTANT: We are using the popular Ubuntu distro (version 18) to prepare bootable Windows 10 USB. The steps are the same for most other Linux distros as well.
Create bootable Windows 10 USB on Linux
Step 1: The first step is to download the Windows 10 ISO. To download the full Windows 10 ISO file, visit this official Windows 10 download page, select your edition (select the latest version of Windows 10), click Confirm, select your language, and then click Confirm button to see the download options for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 10. Depending on your need, click on either 64-bit Download or 32-bit Download button to begin downloading the Windows 10 ISO file in the browser.
Step 2: Connect a USB drive that you would like to use to prepare the bootable Windows 10 USB to your PC running Linux.
Step 3: Format the USB drive. To do that, open the Disks application (use search). Select your USB in the left-pane, click the hamburger icon, click the Format disk option, select Don’t overwrite existing data (Quick) and Compatible with all systems and devices options, and then click the Format button. When you get the confirmation dialog, click the Format button again to format the drive.
Step 4: Next, install WoeUSB software. To install it, execute the following three commands one after another at the terminal. Note that these commands work on most Linux distros, including the popular Ubuntu.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
(Press Enter key to execute)
sudo apt update
(Press Enter key to execute)
sudo apt install woeusb
(Press Enter key to execute)
Step 5: Launch WoeUSB. It will automatically detect and select the connected USB drive. You just need to browse to the Windows 10 ISO image and select it. Click on the Install button to begin preparing the bootable Windows 10 USB drive.
If you are asked to enter the account password, please type the same.
NOTE: If you get “Target device is currently busy, unmount all mounted partitions” error, open Disks, select the USB drive, and then unmount the drive by clicking the Unmount selected partition icon (refer the picture below). Launch WoeUSB again, select your ISO, make sure that USB is selected and then click the Install button.
Once the bootable USB is ready, you will see the “Installation succeeded” message.
You may now remove the USB drive and connect it to the PC where you want to install Windows 10 and turn on the PC to boot from it. Don’t forget to make necessary changes to the BIOS to enable booting from USB.
Our how to prepare Ubuntu bootable USB on Windows 10 guide might also interest you.
name says
WoeUSB is a piece of crap software, save some time and look for another solution.
Deepak says
i am getting following errors
Installation failed!
Exit code: 256
Log:
WoeUSB v@@WOEUSB_VERSION@@
==============================
Mounting source filesystem…
Wiping all existing partition table and filesystem signatures in /dev/sdb…
/dev/sdb: 2 bytes were erased at offset 0x000001fe (dos): 55 aa
/dev/sdb: calling ioctl to re-read partition table: Success
Ensure that /dev/sdb is really wiped…
Creating new partition table on /dev/sdb…
Creating target partition…
Making system realize that partition table has changed…
Wait 3 seconds for block device nodes to populate…
mkfs.fat: warning – lowercase labels might not work properly with DOS or Windows
mkfs.fat 4.1 (2017-01-24)
Mounting target filesystem…
Applying workaround to prevent 64-bit systems with big primary memory from being unresponsive during copying files.
Copying files from source media…
cp: error reading ‘./boot/en-us/bootsect.exe.mui’: Input/output error
The command “cp “${source_file}” “${dest_file}”” failed with exit status “1”, program is prematurely aborted
/usr/bin/woeusb: line 1782: local: only_for_gui: readonly variable
The command “cp “${source_file}” “${dest_file}”” failed with exit status “1”, program is prematurely aborted