Installing Windows 11 on a Dell laptop from Linux

May 26, 2026

Recently had to set up Windows 11 on a new Dell laptop. I was on Linux the whole time — for downloading the ISO, making the bootable USB, everything. Documenting it here since I hit a few non-obvious errors along the way.

Downloading the ISO

Downloaded the Windows 11 ISO from Microsoft's official site.

Making a bootable USB with Ventoy

I used Ventoy — you just copy the ISO onto the USB and it works. No flashing or re-formatting needed when you want to swap ISOs later.

Downloaded the Linux version, extracted it, and launched the GUI:

tar -xzf ventoy-*-linux.tar.gz
cd ventoy-*
./VentoyGUI.x86_64

This opens a UI modal. Select your USB drive from the dropdown and click Install.

Then just copied the ISO over:

cp Win11_25H2_English_x64_v2.iso /run/media/$USER/Ventoy/

I also verified the checksum to make sure the copy wasn't corrupted (good thing I did — it was):

md5sum /run/media/$USER/Ventoy/Win11_25H2_English_x64_v2.iso
md5sum ~/Downloads/Win11_25H2_English_x64_v2.iso
# Both hashes must match

Booting on the Dell laptop

Plugged in the USB, spammed F12 at the Dell logo to get the one-time boot menu, and selected UEFI: SanDisk, Partition 2.

First thing I hit was "Verification failed" — that's Secure Boot rejecting Ventoy. Fixed it by going into BIOS (F2) → Boot → Secure Boot → Disabled, then F10 to save.

Booted again, selected "Boot in normal mode" on the Ventoy menu, and the Windows installer launched.

Partition error during install

On the "Where to install Windows?" screen I got:

Windows 11 can't be installed on disk 0 partition 2. The partition is of an unrecognized type. The selected volume is offline.

To open a command prompt from the installer on a Dell, you need Shift + Fn + F10 — just Shift + F10 toggles the keyboard backlight.

Then ran diskpart to wipe and convert the disk:

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
clean
convert gpt
exit
exit

Hit Refresh on the partition screen, selected the unallocated space, and clicked Next. Worked perfectly.

Done

Windows installed, rebooted a couple of times on its own, and landed on the out-of-box setup screen. Nothing too crazy once you know the right keystrokes.