So, I had to create FAT32 media to do the job instead. Knowing his hardware, I suspected that at least on two computers he wants to reinstall he would not be able to boot from NTFS. Then, he could run Windows Setup from an NTFS partition.
However, knowing my friend for whom I was making this installer USB is not familiar with manually deploying from a split WIM, it would be easier for me to make the ISO bootable from a FAT32 partition. OK, no problems, I thought, thinking that I would just split the WIM using DISM.
For this multi edition ISO, the install.wim file is annoyingly 0.03 GB too big to fit in FAT32 formatted USB flash drive: I had the Consumer Editions ISO, downloaded from my Visual Studio subscription, and I wanted to use this specific ISO. For those interested in how to do this very thing, I’ve written a tutorial on .Įarly this morning I had to make Windows 10 version 1803 multi edition USB install media. Deploying my custom Windows image on that laptop from USB, I have been forced to split the 12 to 20 GB custom install.wim files that I create, so I can deploy them using DISM instead of running Windows Setup. I have an Asus laptop: it’s only a few years old, and it simply refuses to boot from NTFS.
That’s the real reason why they can only boot from FAT32. But, unfortunately, there are still a number of computers where BIOS / UEFI lacks proper drivers.
