How do I Create Windows 8.1 Installation Media in Linux?

Software & Operating Systems Linux
1

I built my PC about 4 months ago (build spec listed below). I have windows 8.1 on my SSD and a 20GB partition with Ubuntu. While playing DIII and watching netflix on my second monitor my computer suddenly shutdown. When I restart my computer on the windows 8 side as soon as the desktop loads it goes to a blue screen saying "your pc ran into a problem and needs to restart. We are just collecting some error info, and then we'll restart for you". I want to try and repair my OS but I need an ISO to get the installation media. Windows has the mediacreationtool.exe, but it doesn't work in linux so I can't download it. I have tried to run it with wine but I am not very experienced with wine so I don't really know what I am doing and I haven't found a step-by-step on how to do this in wine.

My Windows 8 side was my only windows machine.

My Ubuntu side is working fine only that when I try and use it to access my windows hard drives it says that Ubuntu can't mount the drive because the NTFS partition is in an unsafe state.

Does anyone have any recommendations on how to repair my windows 8 side?

Thanks

Build Specs:

AMD FD8350FRHKBOX FX-8350 FX-Series 8-Core Black Edition Processor

G.SKILL Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-1866C10D-16GAB

EVGA GeForce GTX 970 Super Clocked ACX 2.0 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card

Samsung 850 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E250B/AM)

WD Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 7200rpm Internal Hard Drive

ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970 + SB950 6 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), gray USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Cooler Master HAF 912 RC-912-KKN1 - High Air Flow Mid Tower Computer Case

CORSAIR Hydro Series H50 120mm Quiet Edition Liquid CPU Cooler

EVGA SuperNOVA 750G1 750W ATX12V Power Supply 120-G1-0750-XR

2

Are you trying to make a bootable USB with Windows installer?

3

Yeah

4

If you have the install media then
dd if=/path/to/iso of=/dev/name of USB.

If you need the installation media, you need to use the stupid "tool" to download the iso, which is a .exe, I cannot get it to run in PoL properly. I really miss digital river site where all Windows .iso files were just listed with direct links.

5

Use unetbootin, its available in Software Center.

6

Doesn't that require me to have an ISO file on my computer? I installed unetbootin and it is asking for a diskimage.

7

Yeah I was hoping there might be some way to do it in linux, looks like I will just borrow a windows machine from a friend and download the ISO.

8

If you have a Windows 8 .ISO right click it and than click 'write disk image'.

Select your USB and let it run.

9

How did you install Windows in the first place?

10

Made a Bootable USB from an old windows machine. I have since turned the old windows machine into a linux file server and used the USB to install Ubuntu on my partition.

11

dd is where its at. I have had less media come out corrupted using dd then using GUI tools.

It's quicker IMO to just pop a terminal up and just type out the command.

12

You can dd a Windows installation?

13

I don't know what dd is. How do you use it?

14

Yea, always good to keep backup installers ;) I've got a ton of 16GB USBs I got on sale just for that purpose.

@WastelandSamurai Yea, its just in this case there is a ton of additional Ubuntu forums content/resources for peeps regarding unetbootin.

15

Run lsblk and see which drive is your usb eg /dev/sdb then run

dd if=Windows.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=1M

You may need to run as root and it will destroy everything on the usb

16

Definitely learning that lesson right now :p. I got my hands on a windows machine and made the Bootable USB.
Thanks

17

Why not it's just writing a iso to a disk. Data is just data.

18

Not sure about that... http://serverfault.com/questions/6714/how-to-make-windows-7-usb-flash-install-media-from-linux

19

Hmm DD works for me fine creating win 8.1 pro x64 install media.
Maybe there might be some hicupps with win 7 and UEFI booting. (Seems the link was more about win 7 boot media)

I have had no issues burning windows install media using DD.

20

Yeah, I struggled getting Windows 7 onto a usb drive using Ubuntu, so I just gave up and used my Windows 8 laptop to do it. Never tried it with Windows 8. It just disappoints me that I have to install Windows in the first place, but those AMD drivers just aren't to snuff yet.