14 February 2020

UEFI, NTFS, and Bootable USB

When using Microsoft’s MDT for deployment, sometimes you need to create a bootable USB to boot your machine into a LiteTouch deployment. Well Thanks to an application named Rufus, that could not be any simpler. Rufus is a utility that helps to format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc.

  • After creating your MDT iso, copy it onto your workstation, or whichever machine you are creating the bootable USB on.
  • Download and install Rufus (at the time of writing this is at v3.8). https://rufus.ie/
  • In Rufus;
    • Select your USB from the Device dropdown menu
    • Click on SELECT, and choose the MDT iso you copied to your workstation
    • If desired, modify the Volume_Label to the name of your preference
    • Under the File system dropdown menu, select NTFS
    • Click on START to begin formatting your device

Now, as long as secure boot is disabled, you can boot direct from your UEFI enabled thumb drive and get to your MDT task sequences.