I'm exploring options for setting up bootable USB drives since I want to avoid the hassle of PXE booting. Sometimes, I prefer loading an OS directly from a USB because it's generally faster than using Autopilot, especially when it fails or I need a different OS version than what's already on the hard drive. Previously, I had to format my drives to FAT32 and split the install.wim due to file size limits. Is that still necessary, or are modern laptops, especially those supporting Windows 11, able to boot from NTFS-formatted USB sticks? I'm wondering if only high-end laptops can do this or if any laptop compatible with PXE booting has this capability too.
1 Answer
Historically, booting from NTFS has been tricky because that's not how hardware booting worked. Pre-UEFI bootloaders didn't understand filesystems, and even with UEFI now in play, it primarily recognizes FAT32. Some UEFI versions might support NTFS, but it's not standard across all devices.
Interesting! Do you know of any specific UEFI versions that support NTFS? I'm curious if there's a way to find out which laptops have that feature.