How to Create a Bootable USB Stick from the Windows 11 ISO on macOS

An unused Intel NUC has been staring at me from across my living room for months, so I decided to torture it with a Windows 11 install.

Microsoft has a Windows 11 ISO you can download now, so I figured I'd use BalenaEtcher to 'burn' it on to a USB stick and boot the NUC from it. Easy. Wrong.

Creating a USB stick from the Windows 11 ISO that actually boots is tricky on macOS. BalenaEtcher, an otherwise useful and common tool for copying images to USB sticks, doesn't like Microsoft's offering for annoying, complicated reasons.

Luckily, there is a way.

• Make sure Homebrew is installed. If you're a dev, it probably is.
• Mount the Windows 11 ISO in macOS so it appears on the desktop and is available at /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-GB_DV9 or similar.
• Put the USB stick in.
• Use diskutil list at the terminal to find your USB stick. It'll be something like /dev/disk5 – I'll pretend it is for the rest of these instructions.
• diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS "w11" MBR disk5
• rsync -avh -progress -exclude=sources/install.wim /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-GB_DV9/ /Volumes/w11
• brew install wimlib
• wimlib-imagex split /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-GB_DV9/sources/install.wim /Volumes/w11/sources/install.swm 4000

Ta-da.

(Please note that certain names and numbers above will vary depending on locale or configuration. Make sure to update those as you follow the instructions.)

Comments

[Petergamer98]

After installing the system from which boot disk, we will definitely need a license. It is worth knowing a verified online store. I recommend this one because I bought a license there myself and I had no problems: royalcdkeys.com/products/windows-1...

[mattddean]

Great guide, thank you! Not sure if I have a different version of rsync, but I had to use --exclude instead of -exclude to avoid copying the sources/install.wim file.

[jthomp]

I had to do the same.

[Jones 皮特]

To create a bootable Windows 11 usb on MacOS I used Terminal, unfortunately failed, probably because I don't know much about the command prompt. Here I recommend UUbyte ISO Editor, it works very well on my Mac and only needs to do a few things to get the job done.