UEFI compatible Windows 7 64bit USB install flash drive

To create usb flash installation media compatible with the UEFI and Windows 7 64bit it is necessary to keep in mind a few differences against the old BIOS boot/installation process.

If you plan to dual boot Linux with 32bit Windows (XP, Vista, 7) don't use GPT partitioned hard drive, since they do NOT support booting from GPT disk in the legacy BIOS system. Only Windows Vista and 7 in 64bit version are capable to boot on UEFI system with GPT partitioned drive. For 32-bit Windows (XP, Vista, 7) you need to use MBR partitioning and boot in BIOS mode only.

We will need:

• one, at least 4GB USB flash drive for Windows 7 64-bit installer
• a copy of bootmgfw.efi file. You can obtain this from an install of 64-bit Windows 7. It should be placed in C:\Windows\Boot\EFI. Or find copy somewhere on the Internet. [Mirror]
• a PC platform with native 64-bit UEFI 2.0 firmware. This is pretty much all Sandy Bridge systems (except for Gigabyte motherboards) and some new laptops (Dell Latitude E6420).
• the iso image of the Windows 7 SP1 64bit installation media.

Instructions:

1. create new partition table (not GPT) on the usb flash drive

   cfdisk -z /dev/sdb

2. create one partition over whole drive, set type FAT32 (0x0C) and save changes
3. make filesystem and mount it somewhere

   mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sdb1
   mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbflash

4. mount iso image of the Win7 64bit media and copy all files and directories to the usb flash

   mount -o loop win7ent-wSP1-x64-en /mnt/loop
   cp -r /mnt/loop/* /mnt/usbflash

5. In the root of the usb flash, now there is the /efi/microsoft/boot directory. Copy boot directory one level up so the files also reside under /efi/boot.
6. Copy the bootmgfw.efi file to /efi/boot, and rename it to bootx64.efi.
7. Reboot system. It should automatically boot with the UEFI method, but you may have do some changes in the UEFI Setup.