install.wim from Win10_1903_V1_German_x64.iso not copied correctly on Mac

[alexs77]

I used unetbootin-mac-661 on a macOS Mojave 10.14.4 system to try to create a bootable USB stick from the Windows 10 installation ISO "Win10_1903_V1_German_x64.iso", downloaded from Microsoft on 2019-06-03.

unetbootin did not correctly copy the file sources/install.wim. In the ISO, the file has a size of 4295122745 bytes; on the USB, it's only 4294836224 bytes and Windows installer refuses to use this file.

unetbootin created a FAT32 filesystem on my USB stick (32GB of size).

When I manually try to copy the install.wim from the ISO to the USB stick, it fails as well:

$ cp -av install.wim /Volumes/WIN10/sources/
cp: /Volumes/WIN10/sources/install.wim: File too large

I know about the 4GB file size limit for FAT32. But as unetbootin did NOT show an error, I was under the impression that it succeeded. It failed, and even worse, it failed silently.

[svewag]

I can confirm that and it took me some hours to identify the problem.

The stick can be booted and the installation process will even start, but when it comes to read the install.wim file the process ends with the error

Windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation.

or in german

Der Computer konnte nicht auf den Start des nächsten Installationsphase vorbereitet werden.

And it looks like this:

[svewag]

Possible solutions:

1. find a iso image where the setup.wim is smaller than 4294836224 bytes.
2. create a stick with rufus or media creation tool (both windows only software)
3. burn the iso as dvd - when the iso is larger than ~4.7 GB you have to create a dl-dvd

[danny-wu]

Surely there are better solutions?

[JonnyTech]

From #86 (comment): Create a single NTFS formatted partition on the removable drive then depending on OS:

sudo unetbootin installtype=USB targetdrive=/dev/sdb1 isofile=FileName.iso
unetbootin.exe installtype=USB targetdrive=G: isofile=FileName.iso

[m13253]

According to Microsoft, you can split install.wim into multiple install*.swm files, so they can fit in a FAT32 volume.

Here are the steps (assume your USB drive is mounted on /Volumes/USB):

1. Install 7-Zip and wimlib, an open-source alternative to Microsoft's DISM.

   brew install p7zip wimlib

2. Remove the half-copied file

   rm /Volumes/USB/sources/install.wim

3. Extract install.wim from the ISO to somewhere else.

   cd ~/Downloads
   7z e Win10_1903_V1_Germal_x64.iso sources/install.wim

4. Split install.wim into two parts, each part roughly 3 GiB.

   wimsplit ~/Downloads/install.wim /Volumes/USB/sources/install.swm 3072

If you are on Windows, you can use DISM instead of wimlib:

Dism /Split-Image /ImageFile:C:\Users\Admin\Downloads\install.wim /SWMFile:D:\sources\install.swm /FileSize:3072

If you are on Linux, instead of brew, you can use apt, dnf, pacman, etc. to install packages.

[Ricky-Tigg]

Component: unetbootin.x86_64 677-1.fc32 @fedora

Hi. I encounter a similar problem with a disc image –Win10_2004_Finnish_x64.iso– written on last Linux Fedora; SHA256 file checksum checked and correct. Error code: 0x8007000D.

[arnolde]

I can't believe this is still an issue (not only with German versions, I just failed to install international english Win10 image for the same reason). Not able to copy a >4GB file - ok. But simply reporting successful completion without warning/error - not good!

[0xjame5]

There's a more in-depth tutorial for this using wimlib here: https://alexlubbock.com/bootable-windows-usb-on-mac. Be patient with either as splitting those files up into chunks can take a while (and doesn't show progress too well).

[SimonMossmyr]

If you are on Linux, instead of brew, you can use apt, dnf, pacman, etc. to install packages.

For anyone wondering, the apt package on Ubuntu is wimtools:

sudo apt install wimtools

[jramirez92]

The error still persists, no indication that the USB recording is not correct is displayed. It can be fixed with wimsplit as proposed in the comments.