How to install Windows 10 when you only have a DVD drive?

Hi everyone,

I wanted to install Windows 10 on an older Pentium 4 machine I have laying around which is running Linux at the moment.

After downloading the Media Creation Toolkit, I created a USB stick but soon realised there was no option to boot from USB in the BIOS of this particular machine (only floppy, HDD, or DVD).

No problem I thought, and I ran the Media Creation Toolkit again to create an ISO to burn on DVD. Unfortunately, the resulting ISO is 4.66GB, which cannot be burned on a standard DVD.

How can I install Windows 10 on this particular machine?

Thanks for the advice!

MarlonB said:

...I ran the Media Creation Toolkit again to create an ISO to burn on DVD. Unfortunately, the resulting ISO is 4.66GB, which cannot be burned on a standard DVD.

Welcome to Ten Forums.

Yes, unfortunately the ISO created by the 20H2 MCT is just a little too large for a single layer DVD, whereas all previous versions would fit.

You cannot normally run an older MCT, it will tell you there's a newer version that you should download. However, it is possible to run an older MCT if you download a few extra files and run the MCT in its 'self-host' mode.

There is a batch file from GitHub that automates this process. With it you can run the MCT to make an ISO for 2004 (or any earlier version) that will fit a normal DVD.

The batch file that gHacks refers to comes from GitHub and contains links to download all previous MCTs and their appropriate products.cab. It then runs the MCT in SelfHost mode to use its own products.cab. The resulting ISO is identical to the one that would have been made when the MCT/products.cab was the latest one and will contain an install.esd.

Download any Windows 10 version ISO from Microsoft - post #6

Hi Bree,

Thanks for your quick reply!

After downloading the ghack.zip file you mentioned from GitHub and unpacking it, I ran it and a window popped up to choose an earlier version of Windows 10. So far so good!

But when I choose the 2004 version, I got the message that the URL was invalid, and thus nothing was downloaded. Unfortunately, I cannot even start the MediaCreationToolkit.bat file anymore after this.

I even went so far as to remove the entire directory and unpack the .zip file again, but I cannot run said .bat file anymore.

Any advice on how to continue from here?

Thanks!

MarlonB said:

Hi Bree,

Thanks for your quick reply!

After downloading the ghack.zip file you mentioned from GitHub and unpacking it, I ran it and a window popped up to choose an earlier version of Windows 10. So far so good!
But when I choose the 2004 version, I got the message that the URL was invalid, and thus nothing was downloaded. Unfortunately, I cannot even start the MediaCreationToolkit.bat file anymore after this.

As you may have seen in the thread I gave a link for I used it successfully to make the 2004 ISO a couple of weeks ago. I have just downloaded it again and confirmed that it still works for me when choosing 2004.



Try downloading the .ZIP again and after you have extracted the batch file remember to unblock it before trying to run it. I used the 'Download ZIP' button here:

Universal MediaCreationTool wrapper for all MCT Windows 10 versions from 1507 to 20H2 with business (Enterprise) edition support . GitHub

You can download the latest iso.esd v20h02 with Media Creation Toolkit and follow this tutorial to reduce its size:
Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10

I also knew your tutorial and took the easiest with nlite

Bree said:

As you may have seen in the thread I gave a link for I used it successfully to make the 2004 ISO a couple of weeks ago. I have just downloaded it again and confirmed that it still works for me when choosing 2004.

Unfortunately it doesn't work for me... I downloaded the .zip file again, ran the .bat file again (there is no "unblock" option in my explorer window when I choose properties, and the result is exactly the same.

The first time I run the batch file and choose an earlier version of Windows 10, I get the following screen:

After running it again, I get the following error (and the tool no longer works):


I've tried the other suggestions of editing the .ISO file and only extracting the version I want (Windows 10 Pro), but after burning two DVDs I gave up. The first one wouldn't boot, and when I explicitly created a bootable second DVD, I ended up in a DOS partition, with an additional partition with the Windows setup files which I could not run (setup.exe gave me a bad command or file name error, why I do not know).

At the moment I've installed Windows 7 and I'm trying to do an in-place upgrade of it to Windows 10, hopefully that'll work.

Thanks though for the replies and the advice, don't know exactly why I couldn't get it to work...

Stupid question of the day: why not use a dual layer DVD?

I'm not fond of them, as they geneqarlly burn at a much slower rate than single layer disks, but 8GB+ ought to do it.

bobkn said:

Stupid question of the day: why not use a dual layer DVD?

Not a stupid question at all, but I don't have a dual layer burner, nor do I have dual layer DVD media. I've never bought one, because by the time dual layer DVDs became an item, I already stopped burning DVDs and swapped all my data to (multiple) NAS devices.

The only reason I still use DVDs from time to time is to burn music for my car DVD player.

As for my PC, I finally gave up trying to install Windows 10 on it. Turns out that during the in-place upgrade of Windows 7 I got another error message, stating that the machine wasn't compatible with Windows 10 (because of the lack of NX support). Did not know that

Anyway, big thanks to everyone who tried to help me, I appreciate your time and trouble very much!