Creating Bootable USB Drive

I need help with a crucial step of setting up my new (first ever) windows system.

I have no other Windows machines whatsoever, and I need help setting up my windows installer drive. I only have this M3 MacBook Air at my disposal. I have seen comments about the App "WinBootMate" but when I tried it, it didn't let me set up the drive for free, which is a dealbreaker for sure. Also, no bootcamp here, as I'm on Apple Silicon.

Does anyone know of any alternative, free, safe methods for setting up a bootable Windows 11 drive on a Mac?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 15.3

Posted on Mar 10, 2025 6:06 AM

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Mar 13, 2025 8:03 AM in response to SniperJo12

Replying here for anyone else that comes across this thread with the same question. I figured out how to do this after hours of research and failed terminal commands.

Here are the steps that I eventually found:

Making a Bootable Windows 11 USB Drive on Mac


1. Insert the Target USB Drive, Download the Official Windows ISO File, and open the terminal


2.Open Disk Utility and check the drive identifier number for the Target Drive (/disk#)


3. Format the drive with this command: (replace /diskX with your disk number identifier)

diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS "WIN11" MBR /dev/diskX


4. Open Finder and find the ISO file you downloaded. Select it and press Command+I. Right click on the path shown at the left of the window, after “Where.” Click “copy as pathname”


5. Open Disk Utility and Unmount the Target USB Drive

(You skipped this step, if you run the command below and get a “resource is busy” message)


6. Copy the contents of the File into the Target Drive with this command: (replace diskX with target disk identification number and /path/to/Windows11.iso with the path to the ISO file you just copied)

sudo dd if=/path/to/Windows11.iso of=/dev/rdiskX bs=1m


7. Realize the last 6 steps were a waste of time, because using the drive prepared with this method and the Windows ISO version 24H2 gives an unsolvable driver identification error at boot.

Then, download WinDiskWriter from Github, install the application, format the target drive again, and use WinDiskWriter to finally finish the job. (This does take some time, but make sure you wait until it finishes fully)


Hopefully this helps someone!

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Mar 10, 2025 9:58 AM in response to SniperJo12

There may be alternative methods but one way is to do the following.

  • Properly format the external disk. I would use the same format as the Laptop.
  • Download and install a Mac operating system on the external drive.
  • Download and install the version of Windows that you plan to use, using the Bootcamp app.
  • Wen installed, open System Settings and set Windows as the startup OS.

That should work.

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Mar 10, 2025 11:13 AM in response to Ronasara

Unfortunately, that won't work. I cannot use the BootCamp App on my MacBook Air, because it runs on Apple Silicon. The application simply will not function.


Also, just to be clear, I am attempting to set up an installation drive on my Mac, in order to set up an entirely separate Windows computer, not setting up a windows installation for use on my Mac. (Which wouldn't work without Parallels, Crossover, etc anyway)

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Creating Bootable USB Drive

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