How do I clone a bootable flash drive that I can use later to boot the computer

[Jim8080]

I'm attempting to clone a bootable hard drive containing the Prime Expert Emergency Boot Kit I made many years ago.
It sounds like an easy problem, but I cannot find a solution. EraseUs Partition Master and Aomei Partition Assistant Professional go through the steps, but the cloned flash drive is not bootable. Macorit Partition Assistant stops at about 1% of the process, leaving me with an unpartitioned flash drive. Any suggestions?
I would prefer 3rd party software, since I'm in my 90's and not up to complex processes.

I'm using a refurbished Dell T3500 win10 computer with legacy BIOS.

Jim

 

[Wolfie]

Hi Jim,

I don't use such software, I recommend that you contact them on their helpline direct, or maybe one of the other forum members has a better suggestion for you?.

Emergency Boot Kit Technical Support

If you have found a bug in Emergency Boot Kit, or you have a feature request, email to [email protected]

www.prime-expert.com

You mention that you made it years ago, it might simply no longer be compatible with the latest version of Windows 10??????.

My tip, always make a backup copy of your files on a USB or data hub and you know your personal files are safe at least!.

 

[ClippyBeer]

You need a disk imaging tool to clone bootable media.

Macrium Reflect is free for personal use and works with Windows 10.

Macrium Reflect | Free 30-Day Trial

Macrium Reflect - Incredibly powerful software that allows you to create and schedule effective backups

www.macrium.com

Edit: Here's some tutorials for cloning USB bootable media:

EaseUS Backup:

[Easy] How to Clone USB Drive to Another Windows 10

This post shows you how to use EaseUS Todo Backup to clone one USB drive to another with simple steps. It can copy a bootable USB drive to another USB without data loss. EaseUS USB image tool also allows creating images of USB drive to clone USB to USB.

www.easeus.com

This one details using Passmark Software's ImageUSB to to clone a bootable USB:

[Easy] How to Clone USB Drive to Another Windows 10

This post shows you how to use EaseUS Todo Backup to clone one USB drive to another with simple steps. It can copy a bootable USB drive to another USB without data loss. EaseUS USB image tool also allows creating images of USB drive to clone USB to USB.

www.easeus.com

Whichever tool you use it is recommended that you first clone your USB bootable flash drive to an image file, then use one of the above mentioned utilities to write the image file to another flash drive. The image file you keep in a safe place so should something happen to your bootable the flash drive you can easily re-create it from the image file.

I have cloned tens of thousands of bootable hard drives using imaging utilities during my career and for personal use. I have however never actually cloned bootable USB drives despite owning several. One of the many pet projects I never seem to find the time for.

 

[ClippyBeer]

I just noticed the link to the Passmark software is incorrect. It won't let me edit to correct it so here is the correct link:

How to Create an Image of Your USB Drive

You can backup your USB drive by creating a saved image. You can even take that image and clone multiple USB sticks. This guide shows you how to create an image of your USB drive.

www.howtogeek.com

I was supposed to go to a cookout this afternoon but due to the weather not cooperating it was cancelled - what better time to see if I can successfully clone a bootable USB?

For testing I used my trusty multi-boot utility 8 GB USB flash drive with Acronis True Image, Acronis Disk Director, G-Parted, Clonezillla and Hiren's.
The destination drive is an 8 GB FAT32 formatted drive with some movie files I'd already seen.

I tried Macrium Reflect free but it wouldn't let me clone the USB drives - I guess you need the paid version.

Instead, I downloaded the Passmark ImageUSB utility. 2 things I like already - it's small (2.38 MB) and portable (NO INSTALLATION REQUIRED). You unzip the file to a directory and run.

I have both source and destination flash drives plugged in when I run.

When it starts you select the source drive then 'create image from USB drive'. This will copy the USB drive to an image file, boot record and all.

Next you select the location to write the file and give it a name (it is saved with the .BIN extension). I named mine 'utils'.

After you click 'yes' on the confirmation prompt you hit the 'Create' button under Step 4 and it will begin the image creation process.

Image creation time will vary depending on your system and whether you have ticked 'Post Image Verification'.

The resultant image file is the same size as the USB drive, in my case 7.21 GB. Once the image file is created the next step is to write it to another USB drive.

The process is almost identical except you choose the drive you want to write to, select, 'Write image to USB drive', select the drive image you just created in Step 3, then click 'Write' in step 4. (I had unplugged the source drive once the image creation was completed)

Yes my Windows 10 PC is slow - it is an old Dell BIOS machine like the OP's.

When it was done writing to the flash drive I rebooted and select the flash drive from the boot menu. It worked perfectly! I even loaded Acronis, G-Parted and Hiren's.

Always keep your image files in a safe place in case you misplace your USB drive recreating it will be a snap1

In summary if you want to backup your bootable USB media with something that is free and easy to use, no installation required and can be used on any Windows PC Vista and higher Passmark's Image USB is what you are looking for.

Well time to take off my PC Tech hat, put on my Plumber's hat and attend to some work around the house that's been needing my attention.

 

[Snuffy]

I'm attempting to clone a bootable hard drive containing the Prime Expert Emergency Boot Kit I made many years ago.
It sounds like an easy problem, but I cannot find a solution. EraseUs Partition Master and Aomei Partition Assistant Professional go through the steps, but the cloned flash drive is not bootable. Macorit Partition Assistant stops at about 1% of the process, leaving me with an unpartitioned flash drive. Any suggestions?
I would prefer 3rd party software, since I'm in my 90's and not up to complex processes.

I'm using a refurbished Dell T3500 win10 computer with legacy BIOS.

Jim

I usually use UltraISO, copy the info from the old USB and make it a ISO. then you can any time reburn any ISO to a USB with UltraISO.
or you can use RUFUS to burn the iso to USB. Infact i just made and burnt two USB with UltraIso.
select the iso to open

you chose write disk

select the proper USB

 

[Jim8080]

Thanks for all the very helpful suggestions. I finally used ImageUSB, and it works well. One suggestion. If it is being used on a computer using a SS drive with documents, downloads, pictures, etc. saved on a standard larger hard drive, use an easy to find folder like Downloads to save the image. ChippyBeer, thanks for the detailed info.
Jim

 

[JustinC]

You could use the free version of Macrium and/or CloneZilla.
These two are the best there are in the data cloning market.
The software you talked about is only copying the data to the USB.
They are not burning that data to the new USB drive.
I think that is the problem here.

 

[ClippyBeer]

Macrium won't clone bootable USB flash drives, not even the paid version.

ImageUSB does both, copy USB drive to image file and write image file to USB drive.

I've used Clonezilla many times to image my Linux boxes and it has a much steeper learning curve than ImageUSB. It also requires you to boot into a LiveCD environment so it begs the question - have you actually used Clonezilla to clone a bootable USB flash drive?

I did use Acronis LiveCD to image a bootable USB drive (NTFS/FAT32) but the OP also had a bootable Terabyte for Linux USB flash drive the he also copied with ImageUSB. I have had issues imaging Linux with Acronis in the past so I just stuck with Clonezilla. The point is ImageUSB is a Windows utility that requires just 4 steps so any novice can use it to backup their bootable USB media. The right tool for the right job.

Also, have you ever tried walking a novice through Clonezilla?

 

[Snuffy]

No since I have never used Clonezilla, but have had excellent luck with UltraIso. really i guess it is what "you or me" are most familiar with.
J have found the super easiest is
1. Format USB Bootable with Rufus.
2. xcopy all files from USB1 to USB2.
Done.

 

[Jim8080]

I posted my problems in two forums - not the best approach. Some of my messages were not posted here, so will catch up

Thanks for all the very helpful suggestions. I tried ImageUSB, and it works well. One suggestion. If it is being used on a computer using a SS drive with documents, downloads, pictures, etc. saved on a larger standard hard drive, use an easy to find folder like Downloads to save the image. ClippyBeer, thanks for the detailed info.

ImageUSB does not work with my Linux Bootable flash drive.

I looked at CloneZilla, and to use it I'll need to re-learn Linux jargon, plus get up to speed with Linux again - too much work. I would rather use that effort to improve my Macrium knowledge, and switch to Macrium for future backups. My Image for Linux flash drive works fine. I lost it temporarily, which made me realize I needed to have another flash drive available.

 

[ClippyBeer]

Well that's a bummer - I was under the impression that you had in fact successfully cloned your Linux bootable flash drive with ImageUSB. Let me ask you this - have you tried using your Terabyte for Linux to image itself? I ask because I was able to create an image of my Acronis bootable by booting into the Acronis bootable USB and then selecting itself as the source drive and was able to create an image to the local hard drive. Haven't tried writing to USB then booting from it to see if it works, will get to that soon.

Disappointing but not surprising that ImageUSB wouldn't work with Linux. I tested a few commercial imaging utilities (Acronis, Paragon, R-Drive, Aomei, and Macrium) with Lubuntu 18 (EXT4 file system) and none would restore successfully. Only Clonezilla worked. I also was able to backup AND restore Windows 7 Pro x64 so +1 for Clonezilla. Have read that it also works with Windows 10, haven't personally tested.

Maybe this weekend I will try backing up and restoring both my Acronis bootable media and a bootable Linux USB flash drive. I will post my results if I do get to it.

 

[Jim8080]

I found an easier solution. I searched my old documents for Terabyte and found some old download links, and they still work. I started with one that didn't actually create a bootable drive and made an iso. I'm currently using using Rufus to create a bootable drive using that iso. I am taking my time to verify I'm doing it correctly but should be finished later today. If I fail, I think I found the files/links that actually create the bootable drive.

 

[ClippyBeer]

If you actually have a bootable ISO of your Terabyte for Linux then you're set. There are dozens of utilities like Rufus that will create bootable USB flash drives from bootable ISO files. This is the main reason I never had the need to backup my bootable flash drives - I have several bootable ISO files stored safely so I can always re-create any bootable utility/OS as needed since flash drives can be rewritten. Very handy since as I stated before, I have misplaced one or two flash drives here and there.