BSOD on Windows 7/10 when creating/using USB stick of FreeNAS-11.2-U6.iso

I'm trying to setup my first FreeNAS and I'm having the same problem with Windows 7 Professional and Windows 10 (on my laptop) blue screening just after completing the write of FreeNAS-11.2-U6.iso to a USB stick using Rufus. I've tried 3 sticks by 2 different manufacturers. Always same result - bsod. If a put such infected USB stick back in a running Windows 7 machine, it immediately will bsod, making it a sort of a nasty poison pill and dangerous to have around.

I use Rufus on a regular basis to create bootable USB sticks for other iso's (clonezilla, etc.) and never had any such issues.

Using windbg.exe on Windows 7 to extract info from .dmp file produced by one of the blue screens. It shows an Integer division by zero exception in Windows Partition Management Driver:

1 1: kd> !analyze -v
*******************************************************************************

• *

• Bugcheck Analysis *

• *
  *******************************************************************************
  KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (1e)
  This is a very common bugcheck. Usually the exception address pinpoints
  the driver/function that caused the problem. Always note this address
  as well as the link date of the driver/image that contains this address.
  Arguments:
  Arg1: ffffffffc0000094, The exception code that was not handled
  Arg2: fffff8801c7a8e60, The address that the exception occurred at
  Arg3: 0000000000000000, Parameter 0 of the exception
  Arg4: 0000000000000000, Parameter 1 of the exception

Debugging Details:
------------------
EXCEPTION_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0xc0000094 - {EXCEPTION} Integer division by zero.

<removed for brevity>

11: kd> lmvm partmgr
start end module name
fffff880`00e66000 fffff880`00e7b000 partmgr (pdb symbols) c:\symcache\partmgr.pdb\7E391DC4AAAC45C4A8D0FA49903564362\partmgr.pdb
Loaded symbol image file: partmgr.sys
Mapped memory image file: c:\symcache\partmgr.sys\4F641BC115000\partmgr.sys
Image path: \SystemRoot\System32\drivers\partmgr.sys
Image name: partmgr.sys
Timestamp: Sat Mar 17 00:06:09 2012 (4F641BC1)
CheckSum: 0001DFC8
ImageSize: 00015000
File version: 6.1.7601.17796
Product version: 6.1.7601.17796
File flags: 0 (Mask 3F)
File OS: 40004 NT Win32
File type: 3.7 Driver
File date: 00000000.00000000
Translations: 0000.04b0
CompanyName: Microsoft Corporation
ProductName: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
InternalName: partmgr.sys
OriginalFilename: partmgr.sys
ProductVersion: 6.1.7601.17796
FileVersion: 6.1.7601.17796 (win7sp1_gdr.120316-1742)
FileDescription: Partition Management Driver
LegalCopyright: © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Full dump analysis is attached.

While the Windows driver should not bsod under any circumstance (technically it's a Microsoft driver unhandled exception), however it would be great if FreeNAS iso images could be compatible and not do this. It seems unreasonable to require that FreeNAS users can't / shouldn't / won't use Windows 7 / 10.

However, a USB stick can be created with the old FreeNAS-11.1-U7.iso using Rufus without bsod and also boots the installation app just fine.

I figured that sometime ago the .iso builds changed somewhere – so I downloaded all .iso files for FreeNAS 11.1.U7 through 11.2-U6 and copied them to a linux machine and used fdisk to view partions and discovered the partition format indeed changed after 11.1-U7.

[root@sysresccd /mnt]# fdisk -l FreeNAS-11.1-U7.iso
Disk FreeNAS-11.1-U7.iso: 546.8 MiB, 573380608 bytes, 1119884 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 6A228FBC-98B8-40DF-84EE-60D9AFD8D0AC

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
FreeNAS-11.1-U7.iso1 64 315 252 126K Microsoft basic data
FreeNAS-11.1-U7.iso2 316 6075 5760 2.8M EFI System
FreeNAS-11.1-U7.iso3 6076 1119819 1113744 543.8M Microsoft basic data

versus FreeNAS-11.2-RELEASE-U1 (note also the GPT table is corrupt warning appears):

[root@sysresccd /mnt]# fdisk -l FreeNAS-11.2-RELEASE-U1.iso
The backup GPT table is corrupt, but the primary appears OK, so that will be used.
Disk FreeNAS-11.2-RELEASE-U1.iso: 575.5 MiB, 603412480 bytes, 1178540 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: CEA87E34-04A8-11E9-A590-0025905AD1AE

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
FreeNAS-11.2-RELEASE-U1.iso1 80 1679 1600 800K EFI System
FreeNAS-11.2-RELEASE-U1.iso2 3 31 29 14.5K FreeBSD boot

All versions subsequently have same partition format (fdisk-log.txt attached). I can do some further testing to verify all versions after 11.1-U7 cause bsod. It's rather time consuming, and it bricks the USB stick, requiring some work with dd and fdisk to clear and repartition and restore stick back to being usable again.

This link on freebsd forum of similar issue and possible remedy.

Blue Screen Of Death when insert FreeBSD usb stick

Can the .iso images for FreeNAS be created in the old format that is compatible with Windows 7/10 ? or is there another way to solve this?