Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10  

cereberus said:

MCT does that automatically depending on if bios is set to uefi.

ok, so what i did will not work ? I will redo it. thanks

cereberus said:

SierraPorter said:
I wanted to be sure it installed as GPT on an uninitiated drive.

MCT does that automatically depending on if bios is set to uefi.

does it create the bootable usb differently ?

SIW2 said:

does it create the bootable usb differently ?

Yes. The Media Creation Tool will create an ISO file with install.esd in it instead of install.wim. Install.esd is a compressed version of install.wim, and will be less than 4 GB in size so that it will fit in the FAT32 file system. The MCT will partition the USB flash drive with one partition, MBR, and format it as FAT32. It will mark the partition active. All of the setup files will be in that single partition and it will be bootable in both UEFI and legacy BIOS (CSM) modes.

Rufus typically uses an ISO file with install.wim in it, which is larger than 4 GB. Rufus will create a small FAT partition to boot from, and place the boot files needed to boot in it. Then it will create a second NTFS partition to hold the Windows setup files in. Whether Rufus uses MBR or GPT for partitioning depends upon the settings the user supplies. Depending on user settings, Rufus may create a USB flash drive that is bootable in legacy BIOS (CSM) mode only, or UEFI only, or bootable by both.

MCT has always created a flash drive that has met all of my needs. On the other hand, I have seen many threads in the past where users could not boot the flash drives created by Rufus because they used the wrong settings when the ran Rufus.

?

SIW2 said:

?

I might have misunderstood your question. I thought you were asking if MCT created a USB flash drive differently than Rufus. If you were asking if MCT creates a USB differently for UEFI vs. Legacy BIOS (CSM) the answer is no. The MCT creates a universal USB flash drive that can be installed both in UEFI and Legacy BIOS (CSM) modes.

You can easily modify the USB flash drive created by the MCT to boot only in UEFI mode by simply removing the active flag from the partition on the flash drive.

The common problem with Rufus is users that enter the wrong settings when creating the flash drive and it won't boot in whatever mode they are trying to boot it in.

The common problem with the MCT is users that boot the USB flash drive in the wrong mode for the installation they want. IE: they boot the flash drive in Legacy BIOS (CSM) mode, which is how Windows will then be installed on the computer, but they want a UEFI installation.

I know.

It was a rhetorical question in response the the post by cereberus.

SIW2 said:

I know.

It was a rhetorical question in response the the post by cereberus.

I'm sorry, I am too literal of a person to deal with rhetorical questions. Especially when the rhetorical question is a very valid one that some users may actually ask.

cereberus said:

It is a common misconception that the usb drive has to be a gpt based drive to install on uefi.

GPT is not even required for the internal disk Windows 10/11 is installed on, although that is the default that Microsoft uses (and version upgrades will fail if the disk is MBR and the BIOS is booting in UEFI mode). It's interesting to note that the Enterprise evaluation VMs provided by Microsoft are on an MBR partitioned virtual disk, even for Windows 11.