Install Windows with a bootable live USB drive configured in Linux.

Once I came across this requirement where I had to install Windows in one of my computers without having to use any CD/DVD.(since my DVD drive was stolen by one of my colleagues. :P). So the idea was to create a bootable live USB drive to get my task done. Oh Crap!! I was using Ubuntu in my other computer so I had to find a way to configure my thumb drive to be able to use it in the installation process. That's where Unetbootin (an awesome piece of software by which we could easily configure a USB drive as a live bootable device) came for the rescue. 

This blog post intends to walk you through the process of installing UNetbootin, configuring your USB drive using Unetbootin and finally using it to install Windows in your machine.

Environment:

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Linux
Unetbootin 408-1

Note: Please note that the version of the Unetbootin mentioned above is not the latest one. But I prefer you use this particular version as I was confronted with a couple of issues with the latest version (Unetbootin-linux-555) such as my USB drive was not listed under the mounted USB drive list, etc.

Let's get Unetbootin running first..

There are obviously two methods that you could use to get Unetbootin running on Ubuntu. 

1. Use the executable downloaded from their official site.

2. Use apt-get to install it and select "Applications > System Tools > Unetbootin"

Let's first have a look at how you could install it with the most simplest method (involving lesser number of steps ;)), which is the first one out of the aforementioned options.

Use the executable.

Step 1: 

Download the executable from here.

Step 2: 

If the executable does not possess the necessary permissions to be executed, modify the permissions of it by running "$chmod 755 unetbootin-xxx". ("xxx" refers to the version)

Step 3: 

Then run the executable which will pop up its UI.

Install with apt-get and select the relevant item from the main menu.

Step 1: 

Go to then terminal and execute the following batch of commands which will install Unetbootin at the completion of its successful execution.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gezakovacs/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unetbootin

Step 2: 

Then go to "Applications > System Tools" and select Unetbootin from the menu.

With that you're now basically done with installing Unetbootin in your machine.

Next, configure the USB drive as a live bootable device to install Windows with an ISO image of WindowsXP...

As depicted in the above image,

Step 1: 

Select "Disk image" option which can be located at the latter half of the UI and select the path to your ISO image.

Step 2: 

Then tick the "Select All Devices" option to list out all the available devices that are already mounted.

Step 3: 

Next, select the "Type" of the drive as "USB" and further select the mount point of your USB drive from the drop down box named "Drive".

Step 4: 

Finally, click on the "OK" button which will take you to the completion of the process.

Hurray!!! We're done with configuring the the USB. 

Finally, install Windows with the USB drive configured in the previous step...

Step 1: 

Plug in your USB drive to the machine that you need to install Windows into. 

Step 2: 

Make sure the boot order is properly configured for the machine to get boot up using the USB device.

Step 3: 

Follow the usual process of installing Windows.

Step 4: 

Ding dong! Now it's time to play with Windows.. ;)