• 0

Bootable restore image on USB?

Asked by Guest,

 Share

Question

8 answers to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 0
Grand Master

MorganX

Posted
Posted

If you're on Windows 7 use the Windows DVD Download Tool (google) to make a bootable System Repair Disk or Windows 7 Install Media. Then use Backup & Restore to create a System Image. Needless to say you will need a fairly large USB but that's no problem. What I did was save the image on a USB 3.0 portable for added speed. I copied the USB 3.0 drivers to the bootable USB. When you boot from USB and select repair, before choosing restore from image, choose load drivers and load USB 3.0 drivers. There's a lot to play with but Windows 7 system restore is quite reliable and pretty quick. Saved me many times, never failed. [needless to say if you use regular usb 2.0 you won't need to load any drivers]

  • 0
Rookie

AchromiciA

Posted
Posted

There are a number of solutions that can give you a bootable USB drive.

  1. Use Windows AIK to build a bootable version of windows and put it onto an external hard drive/thumb drive, however I find this one probably the most convoluted of the lot.
  2. Use a program called WinBuilder which has a project called Win7PE_SE which works awesomely.
  3. Using BartPE which uses a cut down version of windows XP to boot into - which I used for a number of years when working as an IT admin.
  4. Using Clonezilla open source project which I haven't had a lot of experience with but it seems to work well

Any of these options can help you make a portable version of an OS that you can boot into. To capture the image of your computer and restore you must firstly learn how to sysprep a windows computer. Sysprep will allow your computer to be captured and restored time and time again - even on different hardware makeups. Once you know how to do this you can use a number of programs to capture/restore your computer's image. Note: Ensure you have an external hard drive large enough to capture the whole disk of your computer.

  • imagex is Microsoft's solution for capturing and restoring images
  • Clonezilla that I noted above is for just this
  • There was another I think was called RapidDeploy that I used all the time but I use WDS now so I've long forgotten where I got it.

There are heaps of articles all over the web and hopefully the above can get you started and then they should help you out.

  • 0

Guest

Posted
Posted

Hi, I think I might have been a little unclear...

What I want on the USB device is:

mywindowsbackup.iso

some software to restore mywindowsbackup.iso which can be booted from the usb stick

Thanks for your replies so far!

Edit- ideally an app that allows for strong compression would be appreciated. I just made a system backup with windows backup and it made a 17.5GB set of folders for my 13.0GB worth of files! (Just have drivers installed, some small apps, moved hibernation file and page file to alternative drive)

It might be pushing it but I think with strong compression I might be able to squeeze the backup onto a 8gb thumb drive...

  • 0
Grand Master

MorganX

Posted
Posted

Hi, I think I might have been a little unclear...

What I want on the USB device is:

mywindowsbackup.iso

some software to restore mywindowsbackup.iso which can be booted from the usb stick

Thanks for your replies so far!

Edit- ideally an app that allows for strong compression would be appreciated. I just made a system backup with windows backup and it made a 17.5GB set of folders for my 13.0GB worth of files! (Just have drivers installed, some small apps, moved hibernation file and page file to alternative drive)

It might be pushing it but I think with strong compression I might be able to squeeze the backup onto a 8gb thumb drive...

I would recommend getting a cheap 32Gig Flash drive and using Windows' built in image restore.

  • 0
Grand Master

sc302 Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

It might be pushing it but I think with strong compression I might be able to squeeze the backup onto a 8gb thumb drive...

What does your drive consist of? compressed pictures or videos or pdf, yeah no that isn't going to happen on a 8gb usb. compression works great on non compressed formats, compression doesn't work so well on previously compressed files.

  • 0

Guest

Posted
Posted

Decided to use Clonezilla bootable. I managed to compress down to 6GB with default settings which is fine for my 8GB drive. Thanks everyone :)

(Obviously, Windows compresses fairly well because it's only 4GB max to start with on an ISO. I've only installed essential apps at this point and drivers so it's still fairly small :D)

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to question listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Poll: Grand Theft Auto VI price predictions, cast your vote

      By noobient · Posted

      $80 or 90%, anything else would be financial suicide one way or another.
    • Why you need to take back control of your synced passwords and how to go about doing that

      By noobient · Posted

      Or... just use Bitwarden. Free, and has on-prem option as well. Works both on desktop and mobile, wherever you are. The age of local password files is over.
    • Mp3tag 3.35

      By Jaybonaut · Posted

      Thanks
    • Why you need to take back control of your synced passwords and how to go about doing that

      By +Warwagon · Posted

      I actually got to use one of those so called "backup codes" once. It was for a customer, I choose the backup code option, and by the grace of god, they actually hade them printed out. Imagine my surprise, when after using the backup code, Google then told use we had to enter a code they just sent to the gmail address we currently did not have access to. I was not amused, Google backup codes should be the end all get out of jail free card, because you had to have access to the account to even get them.
    • Why you need to take back control of your synced passwords and how to go about doing that

      By Snake Doc · Posted

      On the topic of being locked out of a service. Recently two different friends of mine got locked out of their Google accounts. Both were hack attempts and one of them is waiting 30 days before he can get back in. He had backup codes and MFA but not a passkey. It was a browser token hack. Anyhow he has to wait 30 days for the dispute or whatever to end. The other person only had a password and is screwed losing all of the email, docs and years of photos. Google won’t help her at all. Her fault because she had no backup/recovery setup. Enable passkeys if possible. Also do NOT use browser based password managers. If using a cloud service make sure it is one you can fully sync to one of your devices so you can back it up. Like a PC or Mac with some backup drive plugged into it. Google is the worst to use IMHO. You can’t sync your photos at all. You have to use the “Take Out” service which is manual and takes days. That service strips the meta data from your photos. Also Google Docs synced to a device are useless without a Google accounts. MS Office/Libre Office is not going to open a link to a Google doc to a dead account.

  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      Supreme Spray LV earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Genuinetonerink- Dubai earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Genuinetonerink- Dubai earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      hhgygy earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      AMV earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      513
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      164
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      88
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      74
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      73
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!