USB Stick Trouble

[Victor M]

Hi Everyone,

If you use a Linux program to place a Windows 11 installation ISO on it, it will not work. When you boot it up, it will say it is missing a media driver.
Ubuntu's startup disk creator does not recognize the iso file. And fedora media writer flatpak recognizes the iso as an iso but produces a non-workable Windows setup stick as per above.

If you have eliminated all Windows machines like I have, you have a journey to go through.

1. On your Ubuntu machine, use apt to install virt-manager.
2. Copy or download the Windows 11 ISO onto Ubuntu
3. Use virt-manager to install Windows 11 as a virtual machine
4. Use the virtual machine windows to download Rufus the USB stick writer
5. Copy or download the Windows 11 ISO onto the virtual machine windows
6. Use Rufus to write the Windows 11 ISO to the USB stick

Now you will be able to boot your Windows installation USB and install normally.

 

[Bot]

Thanks for sharing this workaround! It's a bit complex, but it's a good solution for those who only have Linux machines and need to create a bootable Windows 11 USB.

 

[Victor M]

Personally I think MS is deliberatly making life difficult for Linux users. For example, if you format a USB stick using Fedora or Ubuntu in ntfs format, and insert it into a windows machine, after a few times it will choke. I have then tried formatting it using windows. But after a few file transfers, it again fails to recognize it. I'd say MS is sore after losing the cloud server battle to Linux. Some stats have it that 80%+ cloud servers are using Linux. What will they think of next? Blocking SSH connections? They have owned market for some 20 years, now their time has come and gone. Just look at the once great IBM. Their name used to be synonymous with computers, now they are no longer a computer company but a multi-faceted services company. MS having to defend their 'turf' that way is a sure sign of a loser.

 

[Victor M]

From Linux Statistics 2025 - TrueList

• 47% of professional developers use Linux-based operating systems. (Statista)
• Linux powers 39.2% of websites whose operating system is known. (W3Techs)
• Linux powers 85% of smartphones. (Hayden James)
• Linux, the third most popular desktop OS, has a market share of 2.09%. (Statista)
• The Linux market size worldwide will reach $15.64 billion by 2027. (Fortune Business Insights)
• The world’s top 500 fastest supercomputers all run on Linux. (Blackdown)
• 96.3% of the top one million web servers are running Linux. (ZDNet)
• Today, there are over 600 active Linux distros. (Tecmint)

-------------------------------------

How many people use Ubuntu?​

Though it is difficult to determine a precise number, the latest Linux usage statistics and available Ubuntu data suggest that there were over 40 million desktop users. It’s actually one of the most popular distros of Linux, with approximately 34.5% of all Linux-powered websites. Ubuntu and Debian combined also represent 49.9% of all Linux distributions for web usage.

(Ubuntu, W3Techs)

 

[Victor M]

Somebody from Ubuntu Discourse said that the Ventoy tool will work. Haven't tested it.

 

[Spiff]

If you use a Linux program to place a Windows 11 installation ISO on it, it will not work. When you boot it up, it will say it is missing a media driver.
Ubuntu's startup disk creator does not recognize the iso file. [...]

Somebody from Ubuntu Discourse said that the Ventoy tool will work. Haven't tested it.

The Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator is dedicated to creating USB boot drives for Ubuntu and Ubuntu family flavors, not for Windows.
To create a USB boot drive for installing Windows, besides Ventoy, also mentioned are balenaEtcher, and WoeUSB.
I haven't tested any of the three to create a USB boot drive for installing Windows.

Regarding balenaEtcher, my experience on Kubuntu 22.04 is the latest AppImage versions don't work, but the extracted zip archive of the latest release version works, and the earlier AppImage version 1.18.11 works as well.
On Ubuntu 24.04, running balenaEtcher is said to be even more complicated. Before being able to run balenaEtcher, first one needs to run this in Terminal:
sudo sysctl -w kernel.apparmor_restrict_unprivileged_userns=0
Another option is to run balenaEtcher in Terminal with --no-sandbox, like this:
./balenaEtcher-[version]-x64.AppImage --no-sandbox

 

[Spiff]

The Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator is dedicated to creating USB boot drives for Ubuntu and Ubuntu family flavors, not for Windows.

Source:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick

On Ubuntu 24.04, running balenaEtcher is said to be even more complicated. Before being able to run balenaEtcher, first one needs to run this in Terminal:
sudo sysctl -w kernel.apparmor_restrict_unprivileged_userns=0

Sources:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/151...ppimages-work-in-ubuntu-24-04/1511655#1511655
https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/4242#issuecomment-2336684620

Another option is to run balenaEtcher in Terminal with --no-sandbox, like this:
./balenaEtcher-[version]-x64.AppImage --no-sandbox

Sources:
https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/4242#issuecomment-2144009129
https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/4242#issuecomment-2345677360