Finding a bootable partition on a flash drive involves checking its file system and using appropriate tools.
Finding a bootable partition on a flash drive involves checking its file system and using appropriate tools.
If the question mark wasn’t clear, I’m curious about your idea. I know you can load a Windows ISO onto a flash drive, but I have a 64GB drive and don’t want to use the whole thing for installation. Would it be feasible to create a smaller partition—around 5GB—to store the ISO and let Windows read it during startup?
Uncertain about Windows since it might be too large for 64bg, but it should work on any Linux distribution.
Only a few gigabytes are needed for the Windows installer. That means I won’t need to use my entire flash drive.
The problem is that Windows doesn't like partitioned sticks. If you insert a partitioned stick it will only show the first primary partition. There is a workaround though. I have a 4GB linux partition on a 16GB stick and keep the rest of it for windows (portable tools, installers etc. Basically my stick is a whole toolkit, with Linux being the emergency tool for when the PC I'm working on is completely borked). When I plug the stick in a running PC I get the big partition, if I boot the PC I get the Linux one. Here's how I did it, but I don't know if it'll work with the Windows installer. 1 ) Get EaseUS Partition Master. It's one of the few ones that will actually partition a USB stick. 2 ) Open the Partition Manager and select the USB stick. 3 ) Create 2 primary partitions. First a 55GB (or thereabout) one, then behind that a 4GB one. Seeing as my 64GB Emtec stick is actually 59.21, I assume those numbers are about correct. Yours may differ though, depending on which stick you have. You will get a warning about Windows only seeing one partition, but of course you know that by now, so go on. 4 ) push "Apply". It'll now create the partitions. 5 ) Select the first partition, right-click it and select "convert to logical" 6 ) Apply again. Give EaseUS some time to refresh, same with Windows Explorer. At this point you should see a 4-ish GB stick in "my computer". Here's where I put my Linux installer on the stick. You'll need to do your Windows one. Fingers crossed that it doesn't format the entire stick, otherwise you'll have a 64GB Windows installer after all. Once the instaler is done, do the bit below. 7 ) In EaseUS, select the large partition and make it primary again. 8 ) Select the small partition with the installer on it, right-click and select "Set Active". 9 ) Apply. When that's done, you can close everything. Pull out the USB stick and re-insert it to make sure that the large partition shows up. If that works, reboot the PC and see if the installer starts. Depending on your BIOS/UEFI settings, you may need to manually tell the PC to boot from the stick.