Live USB from Debian

Grab the Windows 10 ISO Image

The very first step is to download the Windows 10 ISO file from Microsoft. It will take a very long time depending on your network connection since all OS ISO files are very big! You can download it here:

• https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10ISO

Setup USB Stick

Once you have woeusb and the ISO file ready, you may begin to setup the USB stick.

Reformat the Stick

You can now reformat the USB device with gparted. First, you install gparted software:

$ sudo apt install gparted -y

$ sudo gparted

Then follow the following steps:

1. Look for your USB device at the top right corner.
2. Re-write the device partition table to msdos. This will erase all the contents in the stick.
3. Right click on the partition and then create the entire partition to either: fat32 or ntfs.
4. Select "Apply" button at the tool bar to start the reformat.
5. Right click on the partition and label the partition with a unique name of your choice, e.g. B64WIN10.
6. Select "Apply" button at the tool bar to label it.
7. Right click on the partition and select "Manage Flag". Check the "boot" to make the partition bootable. Press OK to close the menu.
8. If "Apply" button is available, select "Apply" button at the tool bar to do whatever that is leftover.
9. Once done, exit gparted. You're done with the device formatting.

Mount the USB Stick

You can now mount the USB drive back again. Either you can open your file manager to perform an auto-mount. The guide here is for those who wants to perform manual mounting instead.

$ mkdir destination

$ mount /dev/<your USB device partition> ./destination

So, following the example above, you should get:

$ mkdir destination

$ mount /dev/sdb1 ./destination

Mount the ISO

Now you should mount the Installer ISO. We need to copy all the files across into the USB drive. You need root access for this to work:

$ mkdir origin

$ sudo mount -o loop /path/to/your/windowInstaller.iso ./origin

Copy the File

With everything in place, you can begin the copy process. It takes time so get a cup of coffee. The last step is optional, where I use the diff program to check the differences between the 2 directories. It should not throw any output.

$ cp -r ./origin/* ./destination/.

$ sync

$ diff  --brief --recursive ./origin ./destination        # Optional.

$

Unmount the ISO

After a successful copying, you can unmount it. You might need root access. Just try it out.

$ sudo umount /dev/<partition name>

$ rm -r ./origin

Based on the example, it is:

$ sudo umount /dev/sdb1

$ rm -r ./origin

If you receive a warning or error that the device is busy, use lsblk again to find and unmount the mount path instead of using the partition name.

Install Grub Installer Packages

For certain Debian, you need to install Grub Installer packages to ensure Grub is capable to install its bootloader into the stick. This is done by:

$ sudo apt install grub-pc-bin grub-efi-amd64 -y

Installer Grub Boot-loader

With every in place, it's time to install grub bootloader. You definitely need root access for this. Be extra careful because this step can destroy a storage drive if you provide the wrong <target_device>. Use legacy boot:

$ sudo grub-install --target=i386-pc --boot-directory="./destination/boot" /dev/<target_device>

Following the example above, we get:

$ sudo grub-install --target=i386-pc --boot-directory="./destination/boot" /dev/sdb

Create the Grub Chain-loading Configuration File

Now, fire up your text editor and create a file at ./destination/boot/grub/grub.cfg with the following contents:

default=1  

timeout=15

color_normal=light-cyan/dark-gray

menu_color_normal=black/light-cyan

menu_color_highlight=white/black

menuentry "Start Windows Installation" {

    insmod ntfs

    insmod search_label

    search --no-floppy --set=root --label <USB_drive_label> --hint hd0,msdos1

    ntldr /bootmgr

    boot

}

menuentry "Boot from the first hard drive" {

    insmod ntfs

    insmod chain

    insmod part_msdos

    insmod part_gpt

    set root=(hd1)

    chainloader +1

    boot

}

Replace the bold <USB_drive_label> with the label you gave to the USB drive. If we follow the example above, it was the B64WIN10. Once done. Save it.

Unmount the USB Drive

With everything in place, you can now unmount the USB drive safely.

$ sync

$ umount ./destination

$ rm -r ./destination

Remove the USB Stick

You have the USB Installer stick ready. Feel free to use it and install your Windows.

That's all about creating a USB stick for Windows 10 Installer.