- Before you begin
Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool (Windows)(Virtual Machine) Which one is better for bootable disk with Boot Camp Assistant using EXTERNAL DVD Drive Click to expand. Create a Windows USB installer for Windows 7, or later; Download the latest Windows support software from Apple; Install Windows, 7 or later, on the Mac; Boot Camp tasks, the option to install must be deselected. All of these options are ticked by default.
Before you begin
Click the Windows START button, and click WINDOWS USB/DVD DOWNLOAD TOOL in the ALL PROGRAMS list to open the Windows USB/DVD Download Tool. In the SOURCE FILE box, type the name and path of your Windows ISO file, or click BROWSE and select the file from the OPEN dialog box. Click the Windows START button, and click WINDOWS USB/DVD DOWNLOAD TOOL in the ALL PROGRAMS list to open the Windows USB/DVD Download Tool. In the SOURCE FILE box, type the name and path of your Windows ISO file, or click BROWSE.
To install Windows 10 Education Edition from IUware, or if you have a Windows 8.x or 7 installation disk but do not have an optical (CD/DVD) drive on your computer, you can create a bootable flash drive for the installation.
What you'll need
To complete the process, you'll need:
- A Windows or macOS computer connected to the internet.On a Windows computer, you must have administrator privileges.
- A flash drive with at least 8 GB of space for Windows 10 and 8.1, or at least 4 GB of space for Windows 7The process described below will delete any data currently on your flash drive. Make sure to back up your flash drive's data to another storage location before proceeding.
- A valid product key that came with your Windows software. For Windows 10, this will be available on IUware. For Windows 8.x or 7, this will be with the disc you purchased.
Insert your flash drive before beginning.
Create a bootable installation flash drive forWindows 10 Education Edition
- Go to the IUware Windows 10 Education page, and select either the 32-bit or the 64-bit version. Review and accept the terms, and then click Get product key. Copy the product key to use later.
- Download and run the Academic Media Creation Tool. Accept the license terms, select Create installation (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC, and click Next.
- On the 'Select language, architecture, and edition' prompt, leave the default selections.
- To have the Microsoft tool create your bootable flash drive, make sure your flash drive is plugged in, select USB flash drive, and click Next.
If you plan to use Rufus instead, select ISO file and click Next. This will save the
.iso
file to your computer; then, to use Rufus and your.iso
file to create a bootable installation flash drive, follow the directions below.
Create a bootable installation flash drive forWindows 8.1
Download Windows 8.1
To download Windows 8.1:
- Go to Microsoft's Download Windows 8.1 page.
- From the Select edition drop-down menu, select Windows 8.1, and click Confirm.
- Select the desired language and click Confirm.
- Select the 32-bit Download or the 64-bit Download (recommended, unless the machine you're installing on doesn't support it), and download the disk image.
You can now use the .iso
file to create a Windows 8.1 bootable installation flash drive using either a Windows tool or Rufus.
Create a bootable drive using the Windows USB/DVD Download tool
To create a bootable installation flash drive using the Windows tool:
- Download and install the Windows USB/DVD Download tool. The final four letters of each file (before
.exe
) represent the language and region of the installer. Download the one for your desired language/location. - Open the Windows USB/DVD Download tool. The tool refers to itself as a Windows 7 tool, but works for 8.1 media creation as well.
- When prompted, browse to your
.iso
file, select it, and click Next. - When asked to select the media type for your backup, make sure your flash drive is plugged in, and then choose USB device.
You may be prompted to insert the USB device even if the flash drive is already inserted. Ignore this, and choose the USB device you'll be writing to.
- Click Begin Copying. If prompted, confirm that you wish to erase the flash disk.
- The
.iso
files will start copying to the flash drive; the process can take several minutes. When it's finished, close the wizard and eject and remove the flash drive.
Create a bootable drive using Rufus
To use Rufus to create a bootable drive that is compatible with UEFI, follow the instructions below.
Create a bootable installation flash drive for Windows 7
At IU, you have two options for creating a bootable installation flash drive for Windows 7:
- The Support Center will create a bootable installation flash drive for you at the IU Bloomington Support Center walk-in location; bring a blank flash drive with at least 4 GB of storage.
- If you are unable to visit a walk-in location or would prefer towork with the
.iso
file yourself, download the Windows 7.iso
from Microsoft's Download Windows 7 Disc Images (ISO Files) page.
You can now use the .iso
file to create a Windows 7 bootable installation flash drive using either a Windows tool or Rufus.
Create a bootable drive using the Windows USB/DVD Download tool
To create a bootable installation flash drive using the Windows tool:
- Download and install the Windows USB/DVD Download tool. The final four letters of each file (before
.exe
) represent the language and region of the installer. Download the one for your desired language/location. - Open the Windows USB/DVD Download tool.
- When prompted, browse to your
.iso
file, select it, and click Next. - When asked to select the media type for your backup, make sure your flash drive is plugged in, and then choose USB device.
You may be prompted to insert the USB device even if the flash drive is already inserted. Ignore this, and choose the USB device you'll be writing to.
- Click Begin Copying. If prompted, confirm that you wish to erase the flash disk.
- The
.iso
files will start copying to the flash drive; the process can take several minutes. When it's finished, close the wizard and eject and remove the flash drive.
Create a bootable drive using Rufus
To use Rufus to create a bootable drive that is compatible with UEFI, follow the instructions below.
Use Rufus to write an .iso
file
- Download Rufus. Rufus is a standalone program and does not require installation.
- Open the Rufus program from where you downloaded it to run it.
- From the Device drop-down menu, select your USB drive, if it isn't automatically selected.
- Under 'Boot selection', select Disk or ISO image (Please select), if it isn't already chosen, and then click SELECT to choose the
.iso
file you downloaded. - Leave 'Image option' set to Standard Windows installation.
- Leave 'Partition scheme' set to GPT.
- For 'Target system', select UEFI (non CSM).
- Under 'Format Options', to ensure the flash drive is compatible with UEFI, select FAT32 for 'File System'.
- To create the flash drive with the 'Press any key to boot from USB' prompt at startup, under the 'Advanced format' options, select Create extended label and icon files.
- When you are finished selecting options, click Start. When prompted, confirm that you want to erase the flash disk.
- The
.iso
files will start copying to the flash drive; the process can take several minutes. When Rufus is done, close the program and eject and remove the flash drive.
Create a bootable installation flash drive on a macOS computer
- From the Finder, open the Applications folder, and then Utilities.
- Open the Boot Camp Assistant, and then click Continue. The next screen should give you a list of options.
- UITS recommends making the USB drive installer first. You don't need to install Windows or download the support software at this time, as it will be easier to do both later. To proceed:
- Verify that the USB drive you will be writing to is plugged in.
- Uncheck the Install Windows 7 or later version and Download the latest Windows support software from Apple options.
- Check Create a Windows 7 or later install disk and click Continue.
- Your USB drive should be listed in the 'Destination disk' area. Use choose to browse to your
.iso
file; after selecting it, click Continue. - If prompted, confirm your action and/or provide an administrator password. The process of writing the
.iso
file to the USB drive can take 20 minutes or longer.
Other resources
Rufus
Website | Article |
---|---|
Windows 10 Forums | How to create a bootable USB flash drive to install Windows 10 |
Windows Eight Forums | How to create a bootable UEFI USB flash drive for installing Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1 |
How-To Geek | How to create bootable USB drives and SD cards for every operating system |
Techverse | How to create a bootable Windows 7 USB flash drive |
There are a couple of reasons why you would want to create Windows 8.1 bootable USB flash drive on your Mac. Maybe you’ve decided to install Windows 8.1 on Mac without Boot Camp; or maybe your PC is unbootable and you want to prepare a bootable USB using the ISO file that you have on your external hard drive; or you want to easily create bootable Windows 8.1 USB without installing new tools.
If you are using a recent version of Mac OS X, preparing Windows 8.1 USB is fairly simple and can be done without having to install additional software on your Mac. The only thing is that you need to have a Windows 8.1 ISO image file in order to prepare bootable Windows 8.1 USB on your Mac.
Follow the given below instructions to create Windows 8.1 bootable USB on Mac:
Windows Usb/dvd Download Tool Macbook
Step 1: Connect your USB flash drive to Mac and backup your files as all data will be formatted during the process.
Step 2: Next, transfer Windows 8.1 ISO file to your Mac. If you already have a copy of the ISO file on your Mac, you can safely skip this step. If you don’t have the ISO on Mac, you can follow our how to transfer files between Windows and Mac guide to quickly transfer the ISO file. And if the PC unbootable, you can follow our how to backup data from a unbootable PC (the easy way) guide to copy ISO file to the USB drive first and then copy the same to your Mac.
Step 3: Launch Boot Camp Assistant software. To do that, click on Launchpad icon, click Other, and then click Boot Camp Assistant icon to open Boot Camp Assistant software.
Step 4: Once Boot Camp Assistant is launched, click on the Continue button.
Step 5: Uncheck the option titled Install Windows 7 or later version (we use this option while installing Windows on Mac using Boot Camp), and also uncheck Download the latest Windows support software from Apple option if you’re preparing this bootable Windows 8.1 drive to install Windows 8.1 on a PC.
Make sure that the option titled Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk option is checked before clicking on the Continue button.
NOTE: As mentioned earlier, keep the option Download the latest Windows support software from Apple checked if you’re going to use this bootable USB on your Mac (this Mac) and not on a PC. As the support software is designed specifically for each Mac, it might not function properly if you try to run the downloaded support software on a Mac other than the model that you’re using to prepare the bootable USB.
And if you plan to install Windows 8.1 on this Mac, keep that option checked to automatically download all support software on to the USB so that you can easily install all drivers after installing Windows 8.1 on your Mac.
Step 6: In the following screen, click the Choose button to browse to the Windows 8.1 ISO image file. Select the ISO image file and then click Continue button to proceed further.
Click Continue button again when you see “The drive will be erased” warning to begin formatting the drive and then copying Windows files. If you have selected the option Download the latest Windows support software from Apple option, Boot Camp Assistant will also download required drivers from Apple servers. So if you have selected that option, make sure that your Mac is connected to the web.
Step 7: Once Boot Camp Assistant completes its business, you’ll see “The selected drive has been formatted and the Windows installation image has been copied” message. And if you have selected Download support software from Apple option in Step 5, you’ll see “Install this Windows support software after installing Windows” message. Click Quit button. That’s it!
You can now connect it to a PC or your Mac and begin installing Windows 8.1 operating system.