[SOLVED] Creating a Microsoft 7 Bootable USB for new PC in Mountain Lion

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John Gavin

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Jul 4, 2013
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I am looking to see if it would be possible to use boot camp assistant in mountatinlion to make a bootable usb to install widows 7 on my new PC build. I already have converted the disk to an iso. My PC does not have a cd drive so it makes things a harder. I have heard many things about doign this on a pc but nothing about a mac.
 
Solution
You can use the OSX Bootcamp Assistant to accomplish this.
Copied from: http://kb.iu.edu/data/bciz.html
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Creating a Windows flash drive installer on an OS X computer
Note: In Mac OS X, the option to create a Windows 7 flash drive will only appear if the computer you're using does not have an optical drive. On Macs with optical drives, the option will be either missing or grayed out.

In Mac OS X, to create a bootable Windows 7 flash drive:

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 can skip the actual Windows install and downloading the support...

Alain123

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Apr 20, 2013
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This is what I found on the internet.
TIP: Drag and Drop a file from Finder to Terminal to ‘paste’ the full path without typing and risking type errors.

Download the desired file
Open the Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities/ or query Terminal in Spotlight)
Convert the .iso file to .img using the convert option of hdiutil:
hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o /path/to/target.img /path/to/source.iso)
Note: OS X tends to put the .dmg ending on the output file automatically.
Rename the file by typing:
mv /path/to/target.img.dmg /path/to/target.img
Run diskutil list to get the current list of devices
Insert your flash media
Run diskutil list again and determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2)
Run diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN (replace N with the disk number from the last command; in the previous example, N would be 2)
Execute sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m (replace /path/to/downloaded.img with the path where the image file is located; for example, ./ubuntu.img or ./ubuntu.dmg).
Using /dev/rdisk instead of /dev/disk may be faster.
If you see the error dd: Invalid number '1m', you are using GNU dd. Use the same command but replace bs=1m with bs=1M.
If you see the error dd: /dev/diskN: Resource busy, make sure the disk is not in use. Start the ‘Disk Utility.app’ and unmount (don’t eject) the drive.
Run diskutil eject /dev/diskN and remove your flash media when the command completes
Now the USB stick is ready. Boot the device that you want from the USB stick.

If this is to difficult I would recommend finding a friend with a windows computer.
 

Ry-Guy

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Jul 12, 2013
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1. Insert the USB drive into the Mac and launch Disk Utility.
2. Click on the USB drive from the left-hand menu and select the Partition tab.
3. Click the drop-down menu under partition layout, selecting 1 partition.
4. Select MS-DOS FAT for the format-type from the drop-down menu.
5. Click on the Options button and select Master Boot Record and click ok.
6. Click on the newly formatted USB Drive in the menu, then click on the Restore tab.
7. In the Source textbox, click the Image button and select the ISO file. For Destination, drag & drop the partition created on the USB drive onto the textbox.
8. Upon verifying that the fields are correct, click the Restore button and select Erase from the application, if prompted to do so.

Let me know if it works :)
 

Rollingx

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Dec 4, 2013
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UP, hello im trying to do the same thing as John, i tried Ry-Guy solution which seemed pretty simple, unfortunately i can't put a .iso in the Source textbox. i succeed in "tricking" the Disk Utility by forcing to put the .iso into the textbox, but then on hitting restaure, i doesn't allow me to do so.
I also tried after converting the .iso into (.img.dmg->) .img doesnt work either

I'm going to try Alain123's solution, which ive seen already but couldnt manage to do, the little TIP might help me though!

just a question Alain, when you put (path/to/)target and (path/to/)source, i guess target corresponds to Ry-Guy Disk Utility's Target, and source to source?
thanks anyways if any of you can answer :)
 

Mediumjones

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Jan 8, 2014
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You can use the OSX Bootcamp Assistant to accomplish this.
Copied from: http://kb.iu.edu/data/bciz.html
---
Creating a Windows flash drive installer on an OS X computer
Note: In Mac OS X, the option to create a Windows 7 flash drive will only appear if the computer you're using does not have an optical drive. On Macs with optical drives, the option will be either missing or grayed out.

In Mac OS X, to create a bootable Windows 7 flash drive:

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 can skip the actual Windows install and downloading 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 and Download the latest Windows support software from Apple options.
Check Create a Windows 7 install disk and click Continue.

Your USB drive should be listed in the "Destination disk" area. Use the choose button to browse to your .iso file; after selecting it, click Continue.
If prompted, confirm your action and/or provide an administrator's password. The process of writing the .iso file to the USB drive can take twenty minutes or longer.
 
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