I'm wondering if there's a way to use VirtualBox or any other virtual machine software to create a bootable USB drive for installing Windows 11. Is it feasible to use Windows 11 installation media or Rufus within a VM to achieve this?
2 Answers
Yes, you can definitely do that! One method is to boot into a WinPE environment and then use WinNTSetup to create a bootable image of Windows directly onto a USB drive that's been passed through to the VM. I've done this before with different hypervisors like Proxmox and VirtualBox, and it worked great.
Just to clarify, if I have a Kingston Datatraveler G4 32GB in real life, I can indeed make it a bootable USB using a VM? Can you walk me through the process a bit more?
Sure! First, ensure your VM is set up to pass through the USB drive. You can do this in the VirtualBox settings under the USB section. Once that's done, boot up the VM, launch WinPE, and open WinNTSetup. From there, select your USB drive and follow the prompts to image the Windows installation onto it.