Install Windows from linux mint without usb or disk

Question

I want to install Windows(I have .iso file) and I have linux mint. How can i make it without usb or disk, using partitions?

The answer lies in making OEM style custom recovery bootable in Windows. Assuming you've Windows 7, create a PRIMARY partition of size slightly greater than Windows iso, copy all the contents of ISO to the partition, and use EASYBCD the way mentioned here at step 7. Years ago, I made my own custom OEM style recovery and made it bootable through GRUB, but I don't seem to remember whether I used dd too or not. But the link I mentioned is straightforward and tested. — Firelord, Mar 23 '15 at 17:38
There is one more thing I would like to advise, always secure in another media a backup of partition table of your HDD before playing with its partitions. I had a rough experience. — Firelord, Mar 23 '15 at 17:40

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 13:48

In order to boot from Windows Iso and install it without using CD/DVD or USB Drive, you first need to create a PRIMARY partition with NTFS filesystem in your HDD. I recommend the size of this partition (say X) slightly more than the size of Windows Iso file. After that boot into your Linux Mint, mount the X through graphical interface and know the mountpoint. If you don't know how to know the mountpoint or mount manually a partition or how to create PRIMARY partition then please search in SuperUser or Unix and Linux StackExchange. Open Terminal and issue following commands -

Mount your iso to a certain location say Desktop by typing mount -o loop iso_location ~/Desktop where iso_location is the file location of Windows Iso.

Copy everything from Windows Iso to X by typing cp -rv ~/Desktop/* mountpoint where mountpoint is the location of X mounted in /.

Once everything is copied with no errors, type os-prober and you should see this kind of output et al., /dev/sda4:Windows Recovery Environment (loader):Windows1:chain.

If you see something similar, then type grub-mkconfig -o grub.cfg_location /dev/sda where grub.cfg_location is location of Grub configuration file, typically is /boot/grub/grub.cfg and /dev/sda is primary HDD of mine.

Boot into Grub and you will see the new Windows entry, enter it and you will be able to install it now.

Note:- The aforementioned technique worked for Windows 7/8 Iso perfectly well. Irrespective of surety of techniques you read, always take a backup of partition table in another media before tinkering with them.

Install Windows from linux mint without usb or disk

1 Answers1

Note:- The aforementioned technique worked for Windows 7/8 Iso perfectly well. Irrespective of surety of techniques you read, always take a backup of partition table in another media before tinkering with them.

Linked