34

What I need to achieve is

  1. Create a Bootable USB drive from Windows 7 iso image using a Mac running.
  2. Use the flash drive to boot and install windows on a PC (not Mac)

What I'm looking for is an app like WinToFlash but one that can run from OS X. This app make a bootable flash drive from a Windows iso image. I found a mac alternative to WinToFlash a while ago, but I don't remember the name.

All I can find is questions about making a bootable usb from a mac to a mac. I want to repair a Windows PC that doesn't startup but I have a working Mac computer, the target computer is a PC (not Apple).

A PC can't boot from a USB created with bootcamp which have MBR based BIOS.

UNetbootin doesn't seems to work with Windows iso's just Linux iso's.

P.S. the target PC have BIOS, it doesn't have UEFI.

Eric O. Lebigot
  • 101
Vitim.us
  • 628

4 Answers4

17

Bootcamp can create a USB for PC. Just only check the "Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk" checkbox. A similar question from How to create a Windows 7 installation USB from OS X? shows that Bootcamp has the "ability to create install USBs" for Windows.

Community
  • 1
PoisonNinja
  • 1,116
  • Accordingly to this, it doesn't work http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/75817/will-bootable-usb-created-by-bootcamp-on-mac-work-with-pc or at least isn't straightforward – Vitim.us Mar 12 '14 at 16:41
  • 3
    there is no such option on tosemite – DataGreed May 22 '15 at 11:55
  • It can but only till windows 7 – hithwen May 25 '15 at 23:01
  • Just noticed that this does NOT work for x86 ISOs. The Bootcamp wizard detects the bitness and kicks it out as that won't run on your Mac. (Why am I using x86? Older laptop, and the hardware requirements for it are slightly lower.) – halr9000 Jul 25 '15 at 19:30
  • @hithwen: Not sure why this wouldn't work for win8 and win10. This worked perfectly for me to create a bootable USB drive for Windows 10 (x64) using the latest ISO. (I'm running El Capitan, the USB key boots on a normal PC) – HectorMalot Jan 05 '16 at 08:54
  • Bootcamp on macOS Sierra tells me that I need to have at least 50 GB of free space on my disk: I can't see the simple option to create a bootable USB. Can Bootcamp still be used for creating a bootable Windows USB? – Eric O. Lebigot Aug 13 '17 at 07:30
7

Have you tried using UNetbootin with the Windows ISO? According to various references online it should work (although that was using the Linux and Windows versions).

Several years ago I created a Windows 7 boot USB using UNetbootin but I can't remember if it was created using OS X or a Windows virtual machine.

mjturner
  • 4,945
2

Please use following link, I have successfully created bootable usb for windows from mac.

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-mac-osx

Community
  • 1
Golam Mawla Newton
  • 49
  • Welcome to Ask Different! While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. – grg Jan 18 '15 at 16:29
  • What in that link helps Windows? Isn't there more to the story? – bmike Sep 19 '15 at 19:07
  • this is a great solution, just use your windows iso, and do the steps. Basically: convert iso to img, unmount usb, use dd to put image on usb. Very simple, all easy command-line stuff. – konsumer Oct 05 '15 at 23:13
  • Perhaps I did something wrong: the files are on the USB stick but it's not bootable. – Iain Oct 24 '15 at 10:37
  • 1
    I don't understand why this answer has so many down votes. The guide linked has helped me before to create a bootable Windows USB and it helped me now too. – Gio Mar 26 '16 at 12:46
  • this does not work. – Kerim Incedayi Nov 23 '16 at 18:46
  • This answer is no longer valid. I assume the instructions on the site you link to have been modified. This has nothing to do with dd any more , as commented by @konsumer – Pétur Ingi Egilsson Feb 12 '17 at 08:23
  • Oh yeh, the instructions changed. Boo!

    From here: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/73183/copying-iso-file-to-usb-drive-in-os-x

    First run diskutil list then insert your usb stick and run diskutil list again to see the disk node (e.g. /dev/disk2). Now run diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN and do sudo dd if=/path-to.iso of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m When finished diskutil eject /dev/diskN

     – konsumer Feb 14 '17 at 22:03
1

I found a complete solution which helps solving many issues until you are able to create your bootable usb drive:

http://michael.anastasiou.me/create-windows-7-8-bootable-usb-drive-mac/

Mike
  • 47
  • 1
    Answers on Ask Different need to be more than just a link. It's okay to include a link, but please summarize or excerpt it in the answer. The idea is to make the answer stand alone. – nohillside Feb 25 '15 at 22:06