Make a Windows Bootable USB on Linux without WoeUSB

Learn how to create a Windows Bootable USB on Linux without using WoeUSB or any other external software.

You can create Linux bootable USBs on Windows, but can you create a Windows 10 bootable USB on Linux? Officially, no. Microsoft does not have an official option to create one on Linux. However, that isn’t going to limit us from making one. While there are other options to do it on Linux like using WoeUSB, it isn’t ideal for many because you have to install external software. However, while I was trying to reinstall Windows 10 on my new machine, I found a way to create a bootable Windows 10 USB without installing any external software.

You will need a USB with at least 8GB on it. USB 3.0 is preferred, although 2.0 will work. Of course, you will need a computer running Linux. I am using Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

The second step is to format your USB drive. You can either do this in the Files app or the GNOME disks utility. For this tutorial, I will be using GNOME disks.

Locate the Disks app by using the search bar.

Once you have launched the Disks app, click on the three dots on the top right. Then click “Format Disk.”

Make sure you have the “Don’t overwrite existing data” option selected for a fast format. Also, format it in the MBR/DOS format as shown above.

The third step is to partition your whole USB to exFAT. You can use regular FAT if the ISO file is under 4GB. In my case, the ISO is over 4GB so I am going to use exFAT.

Click on the “+” near the gear icons.

Make sure the partition size is set to the maximum capacity of your USB. If it doesn’t let you partition it to the maximum capacity, go back to Step 2 and try formatting the USB once again.

You can rename your volume name to anything you want. I’m just going to give it the name of “Windows 10 USB” so I know what it’s for.

Click “Other.”

Select “Next.”

In this menu, select exFAT. The first time I was trying this, the exFAT option was blurred out. I solved the issue by installing exfat-utils. You can install exfat-utils by running this command in your terminal:

Once that’s configured, click “Create.”

If you completed all the steps correctly, you should see Partition 1 formatted to exFAT.

First, locate the ISO file. Then right-click on the file and press “Open With Disk Image Mounter.”

Click on “Other Locations” in the menu and click on the folder starting with “CCCOMA.”

Select all of the contents in the file and copy it.

Locate your USB and paste the files in there. This could take a bit of time based on what type of USB you have. Since I have 3.0, it didn’t take very long.

Once everything has been copied successfully, you may eject the USB and use it to install Windows.

Good luck!

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