If you have serious bug with your PC and can't fully kicking into Windows 10, you must either repair or reinstall the operating arrangement to get things working once more. You need a bootable Windows 10 USB stick for that, and using another PC is the best way to create ane from scratch.

Only what if you only accept a Mac at hand? As you lot may've already found out, Microsoft'due south Media Creation Tool does non work on macOS.

In that example, the all-time way to create a Windows 10 bootable USB for Mac is to manually format a flash drive and copy the relevant files into it using the Mac'due south Terminal. There's a storage-related factor at play, so the entire process can finish upward being somewhat complicated.

What You lot Need to Create a Bootable Windows x USB on Mac

To go started, you must have an ISO image of Windows 10 on your Mac. It's a file that contains all the stuff that goes into the bootable Windows x USB stick that you're about to create. You can safely download the latest version of Windows ten past heading over to Microsoft's Download Windows 10 page using Safari or a third-political party web browser.

You lot must as well have a USB stick with at least 8GB of storage space. You will lose all information on the bulldoze, and then practise exist sure to back upward whatever important files within it earlier you go ahead.

Additionally, you must install HomeBrew on your Mac. It'due south an open-source software packet manager that you must then use to add a command line tool called wimlib. Only why?

Newer Windows x ISO images contain a file called "install.wim" that weighs in at over four gigabytes. The FAT32 storage format—which is the only format that Windows and macOS has in mutual—has a file size limitation of 4GB. With wimlib, you lot can get around the limitation by splitting or compressing the "install.wim" file.

Tip: To check the size of the "install.wim" file, mount the ISO image (just double-click it), open the Sources folder on the pop-upwardly window, select install.wim, and press Space.

If you lot have an older ISO image of Windows 10 (such as Windows x version 1903 or earlier), it may accept an "install.wim" file under 4GB. In that case, you don't have to install HomeBrew and wimlib since you tin copy the file to the USB stick normally.

However, Microsoft does not make older versions of Windows x available for download in ISO format. If y'all practise have a re-create lying effectually, feel free to employ it.

Give the Kick Camp Assistant a Try Starting time

Earlier you go ahead, you may want to requite the Mac's Boot Camp Assistant a try first. Information technology comes with an option to create bootable Windows 10 USB drives on a few Mac models, but information technology usually ends up running into issues while formatting or copying files to the flash drive. It's notwithstanding worth a shot, though.

Note: Y'all can't use Boot Army camp Assistant on Mac's with Apple M1 chipsets.

one. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities and launch Boot Camp Assistant.

ii. Select Continue on the Introduction screen.

3. Bank check the box next to Create a Windows 10 or afterward install disk. And so, uncheck the box next to Install Windows 10 or later version and select Continue.

four. Select the Windows x ISO image from your Mac'south internal storage and select Continue.

5. Wait until the Boot Camp Assistant finishes creating the bootable Windows 10 USB. Then, unmount the flash drive (right-click and select Squirt) from the desktop.

Continue reading and use the Mac's Concluding instead if you run into any of the problems below:

  • The Create a Windows 10 or later install deejay selection is missing.
  • You get An error occurred while formatting the disk message.
  • You get a There is non plenty space available on the disk message.
  • You tin can't use the USB stick to boot into a PC.

Install HomeBrew and wimlib on the Mac

Install HomeBrew and wimlib on your Mac by running the following commands in the Mac'south Terminal. If you lot program to utilise an older Windows 10 ISO file with an "install.wim" file under 4GB, skip alee to the next section.

1. Go to Finder > Applications and launch Last.

2. Copy and paste the following control and press Enter.

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

Type in your Mac user password and press Enter again to install HomeBrew. It may take several minutes.

3. Type mash install wimlib and printing Enter to install wimlib.

Create a Windows 10 Bootable USB With Terminal

In one case you've finished installing HomeBrew and wimlib, use the steps that follow to create the bootable Windows 10 USB on your Mac. If you chose not to install them, then use the alternative command in pace 7 and skip step 8.

1. Connect the USB stick to your Mac.

two. Open Terminal.

3. Type diskutil list and press Enter to bring upwardly a listing of all drives on your Mac.

four. Notation downwardly the USB stick's deejay identifier—disk2, disk3, disk4, etc. Information technology should appear to the left of (external, physical).

If you have multiple external drives attached, use the SIZE cavalcade to place the USB stick.

five. Substitute the disk identifier (disk2) at the end of the command beneath and utilise it to format the flash drive.

diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS "WINDOWS10" MBR /dev/disk2

Notation: If you lot encounter issues later while setting upward Windows 10 on a drive with a GPT (GUID Division Table) segmentation scheme, utilise the following control instead to format the USB stick and go through the rest of the steps once again.

diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS "WINDOWS10" GPT /dev/disk2

6. Mount the ISO from the Downloads folder of your Mac. Brand sure to substitute the file proper name of the ISO prototype—including its file path—in the command below every bit needed.

hdiutil mount ~/Downloads/Win10_20H2_v2_English_x64.iso

vii. Copy the contents of the ISO image—excluding the "install.wim" file—into the USB stick with the command below.

rsync -vha –exclude=sources/install.wim /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/* /Volumes/WINDOWS10

If you mounted an ISO image with an "install.wim" file that doesn't exceed 4GB, use the following control instead to copy all the contents to the flash drive. Too, skip the next step.

rsync -vha /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/* /Volumes/WINDOWS10

eight. Use the following control to divide and copy the install.wim file to the USB stick.

wimlib-imagex split /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/sources/install.wim /Volumes/WINDOWS10/sources/install.swm 3000

Alternatively, you can use the two commands below to shrink and copy the install.wim file to the bulldoze. Nevertheless, this method can take a lot of fourth dimension (upward to an 60 minutes) to consummate.

sudo wimlib-imagex optimize install.wim –solid

cp install.wim /Volumes/WINDOWS10/sources/install.wim

9. After Terminal finishes copying all files, unmount the USB from the desktop or use the following command (replace with right disk identifier) instead.

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2

You can at present disconnect the USB drive and use it to boot into your PC. Do retrieve to change the boot order if you haven't done that already already. The USB stick should as well part as a bootable device on your Mac.

Kick into Your Computer and First Repairing

Did y'all manage to boot into your computer with the USB stick? You probably did. If not, it'south probable that your PC uses the much older BIOS (Basic Input/Output Organization) instead of UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). Your best bet and so is to install Windows 10 onto your Mac itself and use Microsoft's Media Creation Tool or a tertiary-party utility such as Rufus to create a uniform bootable Windows 10 USB stick.