Fix Error Your bootable USB drive could not be created

Posted on September 8, 2014 by 123myIT

This video and article will show you how to Fix Error Your bootable USB drive could not be created.

Hi All
When installing Windows on a Mac I came across this error when I was trying to create a USB drive. The problem is the DVD is already mounted in Disk utility and when this is the case the Boot Camp Assistant cannot mount the DVD at the same time so you get this Error Your bootable USB drive could not be created.

Your bootable USB drive could not be created

The fix for this is pretty straight forward. You need to unmount the USB drive in order to get this to work. But also you will need to make a copy of that DVD so that you will be able to continue along with the setup.
If you want to know how to create a ISO or DMG file from a DVD then you can follow the 123myIT.com video here.
How to create an ISO file on a Mac

Once you have created your DMG or ISO file, you can then start the process again with the Boot Camp Assistant. However this time instead of selecting the DVD drive, go into your Documents folder and select the newly created DMG or ISO file. This should then allow you to continue on with the installation as normal and Fix Error Your bootable USB drive could not be created one and for all.

Users that have upgraded to Yosemite may also get this same error. If this is the case just follow the steps outlined above and you should hopefully resolve the same error.

If you want to see the official Apple page on how to create an ISO image file click on the link below.
Boot Camp: Creating an ISO image from a Windows installation DVD

Good luck
Matt

39 thoughts on “Fix Error Your bootable USB drive could not be created”

olawale on September 8, 2014 at 10:15 am said:

Hi Matt,
Can we get one for windows OS too? I was trying to create a windows 7 bootable usb

thanks

Reply ↓
- 123myIT on September 9, 2014 at 12:57 am said:
  
  Hi olawale
  What is the error message you are getting on your drive?
  Cheers
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
Mikkel Åberg on September 11, 2014 at 9:44 pm said:

I have bought the windows 8.1 pro version from microsoft store. What am i supposed to to? I have the same problem as you

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- Mikkel Åberg on September 11, 2014 at 9:51 pm said:
  
  Its downloadable, i don’t have a cd.
  
  Reply ↓
- 123myIT on September 13, 2014 at 9:03 am said:
  
  Hi Mikkel Åberg
  When you download the file what does it come in .exe or .iso?
  Cheers
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
  - Erin on February 22, 2015 at 10:44 pm said:
    
    My file came in .exe How do I get this fixed? Keeps reading Your Bootable USB drive could not be created. Help!
    
    Reply ↓
    - 123myIT on February 23, 2015 at 12:05 am said:
      
      HI Erin
      Try this video here.
      https://www.123myit.com/2014/11/create-usb-installation-media-windows-8-1/
      Cheers
      Matt
      
      Reply ↓
Shaun on September 19, 2014 at 8:54 am said:

I have a 4GB USB drive, using Bootcamp to make Wininstall from Windows 8.1 .iso I got from your site. Says the USB drive is not big enough.

Your bootable USB drive could not be created

It says it has 4.05 GB available.

Any ideas?

Reply ↓
- 123myIT on September 20, 2014 at 9:02 am said:
  
  Hi Shaun
  Try a bigger USB, it sounds like its trying to put Windows and the Windows support software on the USB, in which case it will need to be 8GB or larger.
  Otherwise you can try removing the Windows support software tick and just download the boot camp drivers after that link below.
  https://www.123myit.com/boot-camp-drivers/
  Good luck
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
Jarrett on September 23, 2014 at 4:59 am said:

Hey man. So i built my first computer the other day and so far eveyrthing was good until it got time to get windows. Of course me being cheap i didn’t go with optical drive. I just put my iso file using boot camp assistant like in one of your videos. But when i plugged it in and chose to boot from the usb all i got was a “_” just blinking over and over my friend said i had to change the format of the flash drive to ExFat or Fatex whatever it is, then he told me to go to boot camp assistant and do the same thing. I did but it changed the format of the flash drive back to how it was in the old format, it wasn’t fatex anymore. Please help!! Thanks a million!!!

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- 123myIT on September 24, 2014 at 3:23 am said:
  
  Hi Jarrett
  The blinking cursor means that the USB drive with Windows and boot camp drivers cant be read for whatever reason.
  You need to format the USB drive in a format that can be read by both Windows and OS X.
  Usually when you tick Create USB drive in boot camp assistant it will format the USB with the correct format that’s needed to install Windows.
  Which video did you follow?
  Cheers
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
James on November 28, 2014 at 2:51 pm said:

Hey man, thanks for your tutorial.
I’ve actually done what ever that you mentioned in the tutorial but I still get the same error.
I downloaded the windows 7 from this website legally.
http://www.howtogeek.com/186775/how-to-download-windows-7-8-and-8.1-installation-media-legally/

Reply ↓
- 123myIT on November 30, 2014 at 12:45 am said:
  
  HI James
  What are you trying to do exactly?
  Cheers
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
  - James on November 30, 2014 at 4:21 pm said:
    
    I’m trying to install windows 7 on my mac, so that I’ll be able to play windows games on it as well.
    I want to be able to use both OS X and Windows 7, like switching them by rebooting the computer.
    I have OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 by the way.
    Thanks.
    
    Reply ↓
    - 123myIT on November 30, 2014 at 11:03 pm said:
      
      Hi James
      You need to product key to go with that version that you have downloaded.
      What version of Mac do you have ?
      Cheers
      Matt
      
      Reply ↓
      - James on December 13, 2014 at 9:45 am said:
        
        Hi!
        I actually did install the windows 7 and it worked perfectly but after a while I removed it. now I need to install it again but when I wanna install the bootcamp thing on USB, it gets stuck on “Copying Windows files”…
        I even waited for 8 hours but it still didn’t work!
        thanks!
      - 123myIT on December 13, 2014 at 11:44 pm said:
        
        HI James
        The copying Windows files is were it is copying the from the ISO file to the USB?
        Maybe try formatting the USB in disc utility and try the process again?
        Cheers
        Matt
Santosh Singh on December 25, 2014 at 7:08 pm said:

I tried all step but unfortunately nothing works for me. I have Window7 iso image and USB 8 GB.

Getting Error:
An error occurred while copying the Windows installation files.
An error occurred while copying the Windows installation files.

Reply ↓
- 123myIT on December 26, 2014 at 10:29 pm said:
  
  Hi Santosh Singh
  This error comes up when copying the files from the ISO file to USB.
  So I would try a different USB or try downloading the ISO file again it might be corrupt.
  Cheers
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
Bram on January 6, 2015 at 5:20 pm said:

Hey Matt,

Simple, but great video! 🙂 This kinda stuff can take ages to figure out! Keep up the good work (Y)

Gr,
Bram

Reply ↓
- 123myIT on January 7, 2015 at 3:02 am said:
  
  Hi Bram
  Thanks for your feedback. If you want to keep up to date on what 123myIT.com is doing you can subscribe to the 123myIT YouTube channel link here.
  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCblhJta0k6kbM7okrZMUMQ
  Thanks again.
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
Shayla on February 16, 2015 at 8:59 am said:

I have a Macbook Air (Early 2014), and since there isn’t a disk drive in the laptop I thought that I could just download a windows 7 ISO and then when the time comes I’ll put the product key that I have in. However when I click on a link for the ISO image, the Microsoft website comes up and says “The page or file you requested could not be provided”. All of these websites say that and I don’t know how to create an ISO image because I have the windows disk.

Reply ↓
- 123myIT on February 19, 2015 at 7:33 am said:
  
  HI Shayla
  Not really sure what part you are at, maybe you can give me some more info?
  Cheers
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
Ron DC on February 17, 2015 at 8:54 am said:

Hi Matt, just wanna ask. I did what was on the vid but the DMG still gets automatically mounted when I start to create a bootable USB in bootcamp. I’m running yosemite.

Reply ↓
- 123myIT on February 19, 2015 at 7:27 am said:
  
  Hi Ron DC
  Make sure you are pointing it to the formatted drive and not the USB itself?
  Cheers
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
joe on March 3, 2015 at 8:51 pm said:

hi, I have bootcamped my macbook pro in the past but then deleted it, recently when ive gone to do it again i’m getting the error: An error occurred while copying the Windows installation files. i’ve done everything i can find online about it, im using the same version of windows that i had downloaded before and so i know that works fine! i’m stumped as the what the problem could be?

Reply ↓
- 123myIT on March 4, 2015 at 5:00 am said:
  
  Hi joe
  Where are you trying to copy the files too? a USB? If so Maybe try a different USB.
  Cheers
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
afrah on April 2, 2015 at 5:43 pm said:

hi.
i am trying to install windows 8.1 on a 2010 macbook pro 13 inc
i have now successfully make bootcamp show the option to create a windows 7 install disk how ever it does not show the other part of create windows 7 or “later version” install disk .
and also i get an error when making a windows 8.1 bootable disk which says
“boot camp only supports windows 7 installation on this platform.plz use an iso file for windows 7 installation””
need help plzz
thank you

—–afrah—-

Reply ↓
- 123myIT on April 3, 2015 at 10:44 am said:
  
  HI afrah
  You need to use a DVD. So burn the Windows iso file to DVD.
  Cheers
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
petrola on May 16, 2015 at 1:54 pm said:

everybody sais the exact same thing, unmount the drive etc. can’t anybody find another solution to that error? I’ve tried it several times with many different pen drivers and different windows iso images and of course I tried every possibility, unmount only this, unmount everything and nothing works

Reply ↓
- 123myIT on May 18, 2015 at 12:53 am said:
  
  HI petrol
  Have you tried moving the ISO file into the documents folder?
  Cheers
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
  - Rahul on May 19, 2015 at 5:58 pm said:
    
    I have tried from documents, desktop everything.
    
    Reply ↓
    - 123myIT on May 20, 2015 at 12:32 am said:
      
      HI Rahul
      Have you tried a different USB ? What size is it? And where did you get the ISO from ?
      Cheers
      Matt
      
      Reply ↓
Rahul on May 19, 2015 at 5:57 pm said:

Every time i am trying to install windows 7, the same error message – “An error occurred while copying the Windows installation files” appears. I have unmounted the drive, tried from .dmg file & .iso file also and nothing happening.

Reply ↓
Zaw H Aung on August 26, 2015 at 12:22 am said:

Hi Matt,
Thanks a lot for your Youtube video for Bootcamp installation guide. It is very useful and I successfully installed Windows in my old Mac book air.

Now I have new13 inch Mac book air (Early 2015) and I am in the middle of installing Windows 10 on it and I have problem installing it.

All my Windows installation files and downloaded boot camp support software are saved in my new 1TB Western Digital external USB Hard Disk. and my Bootcamp partition size is 70G.

During Windows installation, I encounter windows error message “your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We’ll restart for you. If you’d
like to know more, you can search online later for this error: KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED” and the system restart. The error occurred “after Boot Camp partition was FORMATED and when I click Next to start copying windows file”. It seems the system was unable to copy Windows file and/or save the files in Bootcamp Partition.
Could you please help? Would it be because my Windows installation files are in USB Hard Disk and not USB flash drive or any other things should I check?
Thanks so much.
Best Regards
Zaw

Reply ↓
- 123myIT on August 26, 2015 at 4:37 am said:
  
  Hi Zaw H Aung
  I have just purchased a MacBook Pro 2015. Unboxing video will be up in the next few hours. It will take a me a few days to go through the Windows 10 install, once this is done I will have a video up for that as well.
  So stay tuned.
  Cheers
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
sakil on October 25, 2015 at 7:34 am said:

my iphone is jeailbroken…when i try to restore?itunes show me error 14..how can i fix it?any solution?TIA

Reply ↓
- 123myIT on October 25, 2015 at 8:35 am said:
  
  Hi Sakil,
  What iOS versions are you trying to restore? Also make sure you select Trust on your iPhone.
  Cheers
  Matt
  
  Reply ↓
reza fotohi on August 2, 2018 at 10:11 am said:

If Boot Camp Assistant gives a ‘Not enough space’ error
Get help fixing the ‘Not enough space’ error message you might see when you install Windows on your Mac using Boot Camp Assistant.

You’ll see this error message when the Windows image is too large to fit on the temporary partition Boot Camp Assistant uses to install Windows.
For example, Windows 10 Flash install media that’s been converted to an ISO file will be too big, because it contains both 32-bit and 64-bit install images. To fix this issue, dowload a new ISO for your Windows version from the Microsoft download page.

reza fotohi
fotohi.reza@gmail.com

Reply ↓