Make a Grub2 exFAT Bootable USB Drive from Windows Simply toggle to switch to the exFAT Bootable USB method you prefer to use. How to make an exFAT Bootable USB Flash DriveĬovered below are both Windows and Linux methods to make a USB boot from exFAT. On Linux systems, in order to exFAT format the first partition, the exFAT filesystem driver and utilities must be installed. However Windows 11, 10, 8 should work fine. The process will fail to make the second partition. The Diskpart version packaged with Microsoft Windows 7 and lower (Vista, XP, etc.) is not able to create multiple partitions on removable USB media.

Secure Boot is also not supported via this method.

This is necessary because a Fat32 filesystem does not support storing file sizes beyond 4GB.Ĭaveats: Legacy BIOS booting does not work on a very small select few finicky CSM booted systems. The advantage of using an exFAT partition over a fat32 filesystem for storing ISOs is that you can store bootable ISO files larger than 4GB, and still UEFI boot from them via the Fat32 boot partition. How can I view the hidden partition? You can use DiskMgmt to manually assign a drive letter to the hidden partition to make it accessible. Which in turn, makes the fat32 boot partition natively hidden from Windows. Windows will only automatically assign a drive letter to the first partition. A second Fat32 BOOT partition will be created and used for Grub booting. To be able to USB UEFI boot requires the creation of a second Fat/Fat32 partition, which is also covered in this segment.Īdditional Notes: We will be creating an exFAT partition to be used for storing ISO files and for your traditional storage purposes. This process works for both Legacy BIOS and EFI booting. And finally, set your computer system to boot from the flash drive to confirm that it boots. Then, install Grub2 on the boot partition. In order to make an exFAT bootable USB flash drive boot in UEFI mode, you will need to format the USB with multiple partitions. Can you boot from an exFAT USB? Absolutely, but not by using a typical approach to USB booting.

Create windows 10 bootable usb on linux