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I'm running 10.6.8 and when I try to use BootCamp, it tells me I need "at least 10GB of free space", which is interesting since I have 21GB of free space. However, trying to fix this issue has seemed pointless at this rate and I remember there used to be way to create bootable USBs using only Disk Utility during the Vista era. I had tried converting my .iso to .dmg and mounting them and 'burning' them to the flash drive, but nothing has seemed to work. All the tutorials I have found online use BootCamp, which is what I want to stay away from since it does not work for me.

So is there a way to do this? And what is the recommended file type .iso, .img, or .dmg to be used? Should it be mounted or unmounted when I try to 'burn' it?

dwightk
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Graham S.
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  • see http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204048 for which Macs can support Win 8 - essentially, anything before 2011 won't do it. You also need Win 8 64, not 32 – Tetsujin Jan 19 '15 at 18:51
  • My macbook is from late 2011. And I have a Windows 8 64-bit iso. I tried something new now and I keep getting "Could not validate source - error 254", with no idea how to fix that now. However, I thinking fixing my new issue would actually allow me to create the fully bootable usb. – Graham S. Jan 19 '15 at 18:57
  • Are you creating the USB in Bootcamp? It won't work otherwise… that's why the error 254 – Tetsujin Jan 19 '15 at 19:12
  • @Tetsujin: Actually you can run windows 8.1 on macs older than 2011. My iMac is Mid 2007 and is running windows 8.1 without a problem. See screen shot of desktop. – David Anderson Jan 19 '15 at 20:01
  • No, I am creating it in Disk Utility. Is it for certain that it can only be done in BootCamp? I had done this before with a copy of Windows Vista a few years ago using only Disk Utility and it had worked. – Graham S. Jan 19 '15 at 20:02
  • Is there a reason you don't upgrade from OS X 10.6.8 to OS X 10.10.1. It appears the upgrade is free. It should make installing windows 8 simpler. Also, do you have a machine available running windows? If so, which version. – David Anderson Jan 19 '15 at 20:40
  • @DavidAnderson I feel my MacBook Pro in its current state is not physically equipped with the right hardware to be able to support 10.10.1. I have 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with only 2 GB of RAM (which I was just on Amazon looking a few minutes ago looking to upgrade my RAM cards). I know talking about my specs in this thread are a bit unrelated but I would not mind hearing your opinion on whether you think my specs are suitable for an upgrade like Yosemite? – Graham S. Jan 19 '15 at 21:29
  • I believe the highest I can upgrade without encountering hardware compatibility issues is 10.7.X Lion if I am not mistaken. – Graham S. Jan 19 '15 at 21:30
  • I am a bit confused. Much of what you say does not fit. How about this. Click on the apple icon at the top left of the screen. Select "About this Mac". In the pop up window there will be a string: "Version 10.6.8". Click on that string twice and the serial number should appear. Give me the serial number. – David Anderson Jan 19 '15 at 22:07
  • Here you go: Build 10K549. – Graham S. Jan 19 '15 at 22:11
  • You have to click on the "Version 10.6.8" 2 times to get the serial number. You only clicked 1 time. The first click is the Build. The second click will be the serial number. – David Anderson Jan 19 '15 at 22:20
  • See my updated answer. Or goto Creating A Bootable USB Of Windows 8.1 On OS X? – David Anderson Jan 21 '15 at 18:54
  • Despite what Apple says, Windows 8 can be installed to dual-boot on a Mid 2009 MacBook Pro. You can't use Bootcamp to do it, but you can use the Bootcamp drivers once you have it installed. – Rampant Jun 10 '15 at 02:19
  • Have you had a look at these steps which use Terminal ? http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/103879/49601 – Danijel-James W Jun 12 '16 at 04:07

7 Answers7

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None of the answers got it right.
This is how you do it — without BootCamp:

  • Get/download a Windows ISO image file.
  • Your USB flash drive should have at least 8GB.
  • Plug it in and format/erase it using Disk Utility (under Applications/Utilities)
    • CAUTION: Make sure you select the correct drive! Then click erase.
    • Select MS-DOS (FAT) for the Format.
      (If your drive is above 32GB, you might need to select ExFAT instead.)
    • Select Master Boot Record for the Scheme.
      (This is the one used for Windows partitions.)
    • Click erase. enter image description here
  • Open Terminal and run command: diskutil list
    From the output, find out the name of the USB drive. It should be something like /dev/diskX. X is the number of the drive. For me, it's /dev/disk2. It might be different on your Mac.
  • Then type command: diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2
    It should print something like this: Unmount of all volumes on disk2 was successful.
  • Then type: sudo dd if=/path/to/win-iso-file of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m
    (This will ask for your Mac password. Enter it and hit return.)
    • /path/to/win-iso-file is the full path of the ISO image. Just drag/drop it on terminal after if= and it will print the full path.
  • The process will start but there will be no output for a while. It might take 10 to 45 minutes. Be patient! (You can press Ctrl+T to see the bytes transferred so far.)
  • Once it's complete, it will output records in/out and bytes transferred.
  • Type: diskutil eject /dev/disk2
  • Now, re-plug the USB drive and check its contents. It should have files and folders but especially a setup.exe and an autorun.inf file. enter image description here
  • Done.
thSoft
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Onur Yıldırım
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    This didn't create a "bootable" USB for me, I'm guessing older boxes can't handle newer boot schemes, ended up having to use rufus on a windows box then it worked... – rogerdpack Jan 15 '19 at 14:34
  • This does create a bootable USB, but I can't install Windows on a new machine with it. It says "media driver missing". Try use Rufus on Windows to create the bootable USB instead. – thyu Aug 18 '19 at 06:13
  • Didn't boot for me. – mixtly87 Nov 12 '20 at 23:00
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Have you tried using the cross-platform application called "unetbootin"?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've been using this method for the past year and a half, and it works quite well. Although, it's a little tedious and involves the CLI/Terminal. You'll have to install the MBR bin files manually with either SysLinux or the ones that are included within the unetbootin.app package contents.

Here is a link to the full instructions from the very popular blog post.

Dion Magistro
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UPDATE: Graham try using this answer: Creating A Bootable USB Of Windows 8.1 On OS X?

David Anderson
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Follow the instructions here on creating a bootable USB from a Windows ISO file: http://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/2fy3be/by_popular_demand_my_better_than_bootcamp_guide/

Unfortunately, I'm having difficulty finding the original tutorial I used to install Windows 8.1 on a partition on my Mid 2009 MacBook Pro, but here is a similar write-up: http://huguesval.com/blog/2012/02/installing-windows-7-on-a-mac-without-superdrive-with-virtualbox/

Note: This works with the Windows 8.1 Enterprise Trial, which can later be upgraded to a retail copy. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-8-1-enterprise

Rampant
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BalenaEtcher is an option for ISO images burn.
I found it inside some of Ubuntu's tutorials
It is multiplatform and it works for me very well.

alexloiko
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This post needs an update as a few changes has been made in recent years.

UUByte ISO Editor is a quite good alternative to make bootable Windows USB installer on Mac. It is a GUI app and does the job more easily. However, it is a premium software.

BTW, none of the above suggestions are working if the ISO file is larger than 4 GB because of the limitation of FAT32 file system.

And UNetbootin is not able to support Windows 8 ISO.

Den Williams
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In order to create usb bootable for win 8.1/10 without any additional software please try this method https://laptoptechgeek.blogspot.com/2018/11/how-to-create-bootable-usb-for-windows.html

black beard
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  • For that method you need a windows machine. The question is clear about creating a bootable usb using a Mac without bootcamp – Andre Cytryn Dec 09 '19 at 07:56