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Making a win 7 boot disk using Linux mint 18.1

1K views 5 replies 2 participants last post by  hal8000 
#1 ·
I stupidly installed Linux mint 18.1 on my laptop and now I want to go to windows 7, but I can't get winusb to install no matter what I try, as I need to make a win 7 boot disk. I have the windows 7 ISO file so maybe there is another way to get it to run? I have tried the option to make a boot disk from the iso in Linux but it doesn't boot from the drive so I think installing winUSB is my only option. I've tried using the terminal to install it by following instructions online but it just won't work.. I end up stuck on the "configuring grub-pc" screen.
Why is Linux so infuriatingly complicated!
 
#3 ·
Hi there, thanks for your reply.

I cannot boot from the Win 7 boot USB as I made it using the option in linux to create a bootable usb from iso, which I read only works for a linux boot disk so I don;t think the boot disk is working anyway although it looks as though it should.

So I tried method C and I get this...

joel@HP-Stream-Notebookj ~ $ install-mbr /dev/sda
The program 'install-mbr' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt install mbr
joel@HP-Stream-Notebookj ~ $ sudo apt install mbr
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
mbr
0 to upgrade, 1 to newly install, 0 to remove and 206 not to upgrade.
Need to get 19.3 kB of archives.
After this operation, 49.2 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64 mbr amd64 1.1.11-5ubuntu1 [19.3 kB]
Fetched 19.3 kB in 1s (11.7 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package mbr.
(Reading database ... 197458 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../mbr_1.1.11-5ubuntu1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking mbr (1.1.11-5ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Setting up mbr (1.1.11-5ubuntu1) ...
joel@HP-Stream-Notebookj ~ $ install-mbr /dev/sda
install-mbr: Failed to open /dev/sda: No such file or directory

:banghead:

Can anyone explain in lamens terms how I can install Windows 7, I have a USB drive and the iso file and I am using Linux Mint 18.1. I also have limited amount of data from my hotspot as I cannot connect to my normal wifi connection. I never knew something so simple could be so difficult and time consuming. Any help appreciated!
 
#5 ·
I have tried making the win 7 usb boot disk using the included "USB Image Writer" in Linux but when I try to boot from that drive after restarting I get the message "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key"

There is also an option for system recovery when I restart and hit escape but that just takes me to a black screen.
 
#6 ·
My apologies, booting from a non Knoppix CD is slightly different.

If you go back to the Ubuntu or Linux Mint Live and boot from it,
try these commands:

sudo apt-get install install-mbr

sudo install-mbr /dev/sda

You must change /dev/sda to match your hard drive, if theres only one hard drive then its sda. Be careful if booting from USB as the USB drive can be enumerated as sda and the hard drive sdb. This is the reason I always recommend using a live CD/DVD as these are /dev/sdr, /dev/dvd and different from the hard drive.

I've modified my earlier reinstall grub howto.
 
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