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I bought a PC without OS and I want to install Windows 11 on it. But I only have a Mac and a flash drive at hand. Neither my Mac nor the PC have a DVD drive.

I cannot use Microsoft's official Media Creation Tool (mediacreationtool.exe) for copying the Windows 11 image to the USB drive -- there's no Mac version available.

I tried to Restore the ISO to the USB drive in Disk Utility, but it resulted in the error message "Restore process has failed".

I tried to Create a Windows 10 or later install disk in Boot Camp Assistant, but after booting on USB, the Windows installer could not open the partition and reported "A media driver on your computer is missing". Disconnecting and reconnecting the USB drive did not help.

I tried with balenaEtcher but I got the same result.

How can I copy the Win11 ISO file to the USB drive so that the installation works flawlessly on the PC?

Note: I'm using macOS Big Sur on an Intel Mac.

Pierre F
  • 381

1 Answers1

7

Jensd's guide did the trick for me (Thanks!)

TLDR:

  • In Disk Utility, Erase the USB drive with Format: MS-DOS (FAT) and Scheme: Master Boot Record.
  • Mount the Win11 ISO and copy all files except source/install.wim (too big for FAT32)
  • Install Wimlib: brew install wimlib
  • Copy the remaining file while splitting it in FAT32-compatible chunks: wimlib-imagex split /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/sources/install.wim /Volumes/WINUSB/sources/install.swm 4000
Pierre F
  • 381