Make Windows 7 USB installer in Linux

September 11th, 2011, 10:50 am

So for whatever reason you need to install Windows 7 from a flash drive that’s not a problem!

In Linux:

  1. Format flash drive: mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sdx
  2. Set Label: mlabel -i /dev/sdd1 ::WIN7x64 (optional)
  3. Download Grub4Dos – http://download.gna.org/grub4dos/
  4. unzip grub4dos-0.4.4.zip
  5. Run ./bootlace.com /dev/sdx
  6. Copy grldr and menu.lst to the root of the flash drive
  7. Add to menu.lst 
    title Install Windows 7
root (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,0)/bootmgr
  8. Copy Win 7 Install files to root of USB flash drive.
  9. Boot Flash Drive – Select Install Windows 7

TIP: To install any version of Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate) remove ei.cfg from the sources directory. However, you still need a product key for the appropriate version.

In Windows:

  1. Format Drive as Fat32
  2. Copy Files from Install DVD to Flash drive

That’s it, boot from the flash drive you are all good.

Note: The windows disk formater writes code to the MBR and VBR. This obvisouly doesn’t happen in Linux therefore we need to use grub4dos as our bootloader.

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Category: Linux | Comment

2 Responses to “Make Windows 7 USB installer in Linux”

  1. meLon Says:
    May 16th, 2013 at 14:20

    Do you have a solution for:

    File: \Boot\BCD
    Status: 0xc0000225
    Info: An error occurered while attempting to read the boot configuration data.

  2. meLon Says:
    May 16th, 2013 at 14:47

    Ah! The solution to the above problem is to format the USB as NTFS and *not* FAT. You will not be able to run the mlabel command on the NTFS partition, but the rest of the steps remain the same.

    Thanks for this guide!

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