HowTo: Make a Windows 7 USB Flash Install Media while in Linux

Recently I had a need to install Windows 7 on a computer and I was out of DVD media to use. The only media I had was a 8GB USB Thumb drive. I have done this many of time in Windows itself with various of tools and eve manually. Now I do it in Linux also.

Here is a small list of items one would need:

Windows 7 ISO Media
4GB or larger USB Pen Drive
And Linux Install with root access (sudo, will work fine)

Open up a terminal and location the device that your USB drive is mounted to.

In my situation I had my USB Pen drive mounted at the following location /media/usb, the device was location at the following location /dev/sdb1

I first unmounted the drive using the following command:

sudo umount /dev/sdb1

I then changed directories until I was in the path of my Windows 7 .ISO image. This is not necessary; I do this out of habit. I then use the ‘dd’ command to copy the .ISO image to the USB Device (USB Pen Drive). Example: dd if=windows7.iso of=/dev/sdb1

After a short while the image is fully copied to the USB Pen Drive and you can then boot from this device to begin the Windows 7 Install

cently I had a need to install Windows 7 on a computer and I was out of DVD media to use. The only media I had was a 8GB USB Thumb drive. I have done this many of time in Windows itself with various of tools and eve manually. Now I do it in Linux also.