How to create a bootable Windows 10 USB in OS X using Terminal

[vulgo]

Hey sorry this is an old thread, I'm pretty new to this. I just followed these steps and all seemed to work well, same output after dd in terminal. But when I reinsert the usb it doesn't come up in finder so I can't check if it all went ok. I am guessing that is has something to do with the way it is formatted. Did you open it another way? I am on a MBP 2011 - High Sierra 10.13.4

If you are booting UEFI you can format your thumb drive using Disk Utility as MBR MS-DOS FAT, mount the Windows ISO then copy the contents to the drive using the Finder.

 

[ProjectSunstream]

If you dont have access to a Windows machine, you can use terminal to create a Bootable USB

First thing you need is a USB of at least 8 GB, and a Windows 10 ISO image.

Next open and terminal and use

diskutil list

to find the /dev/disk# in my case, for the USB drive it is disk5. For the rest of this guide I have highlighted 5, as this will be a unique number to your specific setup..​

View attachment 151002​

Next you want to unmount that disk by entering

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk[B]5[/B]

Next add

sudo dd if=

then drag and drop Win10 iso into the terminal window. In my case it was located on the desktop so then in terminal you will see

sudo dd if=/Volumes/Hackintosh\ HD/El\ Capitan\ Home/[COLOR=#0000FF]yourusername[/COLOR]/Desktop/Win10_English_x64.iso

after that add a space (If its not already there) and type

of=/dev/disk[B]5[/B] bs=1m

This is what the final command should look like:

sudo dd if=/Volumes/Hackintosh\ HD/El\ Capitan\ Home/[COLOR=#0000FF]yourusername[/COLOR]/Desktop/Win10_English_x64.iso of=/dev/disk[B]5[/B] bs=1m

Next press enter, its going to ask for your password, enter your password and hit enter. This will start the process


You need to be patient when I first did this on a USB 2.0 it took 39 minutes. This time because i was curious I used a USB 3.0 and it took 21 minutes

When its finished you will see the bytes transferred, the time it took in seconds, and the bytes/sec.

Finally, you have one more step. In terminal you want to type

diskutil eject /dev/disk[B]5[/B]

View attachment 151003


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This will eject the disk, and you can remove it from the USB port. For verification, I reinserted the USB, opened it up, and this is what you should see

​

View attachment 151004


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You now have a bootable Windows 10 USB drive.
​

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Well, first: Thanks a lot! This post saved my a** before but as it seems these steps are no longer valid for Windows 10 (Pro) 1809 ISO files.
I tried to create a bootable USB-Stick yesterday, but it failed. Though the stick could be created, it's not bootable.
Anyone with the same issue?

 

[Crimson1989]

Well, first: Thanks a lot! This post saved my a** before but as it seems these steps are no longer valid for Windows 10 (Pro) 1809 ISO files.
I tried to create a bootable USB-Stick yesterday, but it failed. Though the stick could be created, it's not bootable.
Anyone with the same issue?

Same problem, did you manage to fix this? Whenever I boot to the USB I just get a very short blinking dash and then it returns to my BIOS

 

[EmanuelTheDude]

I created a bootable stick liked described. I then booted from it and started the windows setup. Unfortunately I could not select a drive to install it because of the following error:

Load driver: A media driver your computer needs is missing. This could be a DVD, USB or Hard disk driver. If you have a CD, DVD, or USB flash drive with the driver on it, please insert it now.

I googled the problem but could not find a solution for me. Any idea what driver exactly I need and where I can get it?

 

[MrLowndes]

Hi All. I have tried all methods to make a bootable windows 10 USB disk but none have worked. It seems that, with the high sierra update, apple messed up the file size limits for FAT32 somehow. Anyway I try it, it says the files are too big. I'm running Mojave, but even tried on an older macOS to no avail. I don't think this is possible with a mac anymore...

 

[oldMac7]

I just installed Windows 10 Pro via bootable USB and here's some things I learned.

You can't use the Oct 1809 ISO. The UEFI will show in BIOS but attempting to boot just lands you back in BIOS.
Apple has a support notice that Bootcamp users should use the April version, then update later:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206202
Also, I asked the neighbor's kid (Windows user) if he could make a bootable USB from the Oct version, he brought the USB back, said he couldn't figure why he could make it bootable either.

Once you've got the Windows 10 April version from Microsoft download page (both April and Oct versions available) you mount it, then copy all the files from the mounted volume to your USB. The USB should be formatted first as MS-DOS, Master Boot Record, named WININSTALL. That's all you need to make it bootable.

I didn't use the terminal for any of this so sorry if its OT.

 

[lazar96]

After attempting this method and a similar Terminal based method I was ready to give up so had one last attempt that I didn’t think for a second would actually work...

I just mounted the ISO file and copied the files over to the USB. That’s it!

Installed Windows first try no problems, didn’t change any BIOS settings in order for it to work either so my Hackintosh still boots back up perfectly.

 

[canizon]

Can’t get terminal to find the Mojave install file. It is in my applications file

 

[Justcurious1]

A very late thank you.

 

[Xeep]

I used some of the suggestions in this thread but haven't been able to make a bootable disk. Possibly things have changed with Catalina. I'm running Catalina 10.15.4.
I used the initial terminal instructions, it copied all the files to the USB drive but it did not appear in my systems boot menu when pressing F12 at start up. The USB drive was formatted UDF and it seemed to just be mirroring the ISO file on my desktop, so that might be why it wasn't working.
I tried Bootcamp assistant but I get the error "Need 64-bit Windows 10 or later ISO file". I have the latest 64-bit ISO file from Microsoft so I don't know what that's about.
Next I tried to format the USB drive as ExFAT and just copying the files over, but the drive still doesn't show up as a boot option.
Any other ideas? I don't have access to a Windows machine.