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I'm making a windows 10 bootable usb device to boot from because I forgot the admin password for my main computer via a fedora virtual machine on virtualbox(was installed before I forgot)

do I need mkfs.ntfs? seems to me that parted or fdisk already does the job with regards to formatting the file system as ntfs. Is this the case or did i misread something? What exactly is mkfs.ntfs meant to do?

Bim Detik
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    Do you want to create a Windows installer, a bootable USB drive that can install Windows? Or do you want to preformat the internal drive to prepare for the installation? – sudodus Dec 05 '19 at 12:46
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    WoeUSB worked for me and was simple to use. https://launchpad.net/%7Enilarimogard/+archive/ubuntu/webupd8 – C.S.Cameron Dec 05 '19 at 14:10
  • @sudodus I want to create a usb I can boot from – Bim Detik Dec 10 '19 at 07:26
  • Are you following a guide that tells to use mkfs.ntfs? Could you add a link to it or quote the relevant part in your question? – Melebius Dec 10 '19 at 07:42

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What exactly is mkfs.ntfs meant to do?

NTFS is a file system, the file system used by Windows. A file system helps you keep track of your data, to create directory trees and files.

fdisk creates partitions, containers of file systems. So you need to create a file system in the partition. Many tools can help you do it, but you can also use crude tools and do each step separately, which helps understanding what you are doing, and mkfs.ntfs can create an NTFS file system.

I conclude that you want to create a USB boot drive, that can install Windows 10 into an internal drive. You can use a tool for it or you can 'do it yourself'.

  • Use the tool woeusb according to the following link answering another question at AskUbuntu,

    WoeUSB Error Code 256 with NTFS formatted USB

    In this case you need not create any NTFS file system yourself, woeusb will do it for you.

  • Do it yourself according to the following link to an Ubuntu help page,

    help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/iso2usb/diy/windows-installer-for-big-files

    In this case you need two partitions, one with a FAT file system and one with NTFS in order to get a USB drive that is bootable in most computers and with most Windows 10 versions.

    • Some conputers will boot directly from NTFS (so you need no FAT32).
    • Some Windows 10 versions will be happy with only a FAT32 file system (if there is no file exceeding the size limit 4 GiB of FAT32).

  • If you want to boot only in UEFI mode, you need no bootloader in BIOS mode, and furthermore, if your computer can boot from an NTFS partition, things will be really easy.

    You can simply extract the content from the Windows 10 iso file into a partition with the NTFS file system in the USB pendrive.

sudodus
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