Bitwise copying of a flash drive. Creating an exact copy of a USB flash drive using the USB Image Tool

Some users are interested in the question of how to copy a bootable USB flash drive, and then transfer the disk image to another flash drive, making it bootable. It is necessary to save the image of the flash drive, transfer it to another flash drive in order to get two identical flash drives.

Another bootable flash drive may be needed in some cases: relatives, friends or acquaintances ask for a bootable flash drive for a while (it is not yet known what they will return), it is necessary to copy someone else's bootable flash drive, which must be given away, etc.

Can I copy a bootable USB stick? Simple copying is impossible, because the flash drive will not be bootable, when you start the computer, it will not be possible to start the Windows installation from it.

Therefore, you will have to use workarounds. In this article I will use the UltraISO program, which is designed for working with images.

With UltraISO, you can copy a bootable USB flash drive, and then transfer the image to another flash drive. Additionally, I'll show you how to copy a system image from the installation DVD to a USB flash drive.

It makes sense to check the created bootable USB drive in order to be sure that it will not fail at the crucial moment when it will be necessary to reinstall or restore Windows. When checking a bootable USB drive, pay attention to one nuance:

• on modern computers it is necessary to disable the "Secure Boot" mode in UEFI, which prevents booting from USB drives

How to copy a bootable USB flash drive to another USB flash drive in UltraISO (1 way)

First, let's look at a fairly simple way to copy content from one flash drive to another.

To copy an image of a bootable flash drive, you will need to do the following:

1. Connect a bootable Windows USB stick to the USB port of your computer.
2. Start the UltraISO program.
3. Enter the Bootstrap menu. In the context menu, select "Create Floppy Image ..." or "Create Hard Disk Image ..." (both options work the same).

1. In the "Create Disk Image" window, in the "Disk Drive" item, select the drive letter, which is indicated in the Explorer as a bootable USB flash drive connected to the computer. In the "Save As" option, select a location to save the disk image or floppy disk. By default, a disk or floppy image will be saved in the ".ima" format.

• Please note that the file in the "IMA" format will have a size equal to the size of the entire flash drive. If the flash drive has a size of 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, then the ".ima" file will have the same size. Make sure that there is enough free space on the computer disk. After the copying of the flash drive is completed, this file is no longer needed, you can delete it.

1. Click on the "Make" button.

1. Next, in the "Process" window, a disk image file is created.

1. The "Hint" window that opens will inform you about the successful completion of the disk image creation.

1. Connect the second UISB drive to your computer, to which you want to transfer the contents of the first flash drive. Disconnect the original bootable USB stick from your computer, it is no longer needed.
2. In the UltraISO program, go to the File menu, click Open ..., select the boot.ima file.

1. In the "Write Disk Image" window, you need to make settings for writing a bootable USB flash drive with Windows:

• in the "Disk Drive" setting, select the flash drive (follow its designation in Explorer, the name and size of the disk space)
• you can put a checkbox in the "Check" item to check the recorded flash drive for errors
• in the "Image file" field, check the path to the original disk image
• in the option "Recording method" select "USB-HDD +"

1. Click on the "Burn" button.

1. In the "Hint" window, agree that all information will be deleted from the disk.

1. Next, the flash drive will be formatted, and then the image recording will begin, which will last a certain period of time.
2. After completion and verification, the information about the event will appear in the "Write Disk Image" window: "The recording is completed!".

Close the UltraISO program, the Windows bootable USB drive has been moved to another disk and is ready to use.

How to make an image of a bootable USB flash drive in UltraISO (2 way)

The second method assumes that you first need to copy the bootable USB flash drive to ISO format, which is then written to another flash drive. When carrying out this operation, a system image was created in the "ISO" format without bootstrapping; nevertheless, during the check, the copied flash drive with the Windows 10 operating system was loaded on my computer.

Follow these steps:

1. Connect a bootable USB flash drive with Windows and a blank USB flash drive to which you want to copy data to your computer.
2. Enter the UltraISO program.
3. Select the symbol for the bootable USB stick in the "Catalog" area, and then drag it to the area of ​​the new project.

1. In the "Prompt" window, agree to add all files to disk.
2. After that, the contents of the bootable USB stick will be displayed in the area of ​​the new project.
3. Go to the "File" menu, select "Save as ..." from the context menu.
4. In the Explorer window that opens, give the file a name (I chose the name "Windows 10"), select the location to save the ISO file.
5. The Process window displays the process of saving the ISO file to your computer.
6. After saving the file on your computer, enter the "File" menu, select "Open ..." in the context menu.
7. In the Explorer window, select the previously saved ISO image.

1. Enter the Boot menu, select Burn Hard Disk Image ...
2. In the "Write Disk image" window, make the settings:

• in the "Disk Drive" option, select the flash drive to which you want to copy the contents of the bootable flash drive
• check the "Check" box in order to make sure that the process of writing to the USB flash drive went through without errors
• check the correct path to the image file, in this case to the "Windowsiso" image
• in the setting "Recording method" select "USB-HDD +"

1. Then click on the "Burn" button.

1. In the warning window, agree that all data from the flash drive will be deleted.
2. Further, after formatting, the process of writing data to the USB flash drive will begin, which will take some time.
3. After finishing recording, close the UltraISO program window.

How to transfer a Windows image from a DVD to a USB flash drive in UltraISO

Sometimes, there are situations when a user has a Windows installation disc on a DVD. He needs to copy the disk with the operating system to a USB flash drive, which will become bootable.

To transfer a Windows image from an installation disc to a USB flash drive, you must perform the following steps:

1. Insert the operating system DVD into your computer.
2. Connect a USB flash drive to your computer.
3. In the UltraISO window, go to the File menu, select Open CD / DVD ....

1. In the "Open CD / DVD" window, select the optical drive of your computer, click on the "Open" button.
2. Enter the Boot menu, select Burn Hard Disk Image ....
3. In the "Write Disk Image" window, make the settings for writing a bootable USB flash drive:

• in "Disk Drive" select the flash drive
• check the box next to "Check"
• the drive letter of the optical drive will be displayed in the "Image file" field
• select the recording method "USB-HDD +"

1. Click on the "Burn" button.
2. Agree to delete all data from the flash drive in the "Hint" window.
3. After completing the recording process and checking the flash drive, close the UltraISO program.

You now have a bootable Windows 10 flash drive created from the installation DVD.

Conclusion

If necessary, using the UltraISO program, you can copy the contents of the bootable USB flash drive to another USB flash drive, making it bootable. UltraISO has the ability to transfer the contents of a DVD disc with Windows operating system to a USB flash drive.

If you have to periodically make images with data from USB drives, and then restore or clone them to other media, then you definitely cannot do without a special utility that will help you do everything in a couple of mouse clicks. Surprisingly, you can find quite a few free programs of this kind on the Internet. Utility ImageUSB it is to them and to treat, albeit with their own specifics, the developers have implemented support for recording on several flash drives in the same way.

ImageUSB does not need to be installed, but it will be enough to unpack the downloaded archive into a separate folder, from where to run the only executable file imageUSB.exe. The program is removed by simply deleting this very folder.

ImageUSB is primarily suitable for people who from time to time have to deal with mass cloning of USB flash drives. It will be enough to insert flash drives into all available USB computers, put a checkmark on them and indicate the desired image for cloning, then everything will be done automatically. However, there are several nuances. Regardless of the size of the flash drive, logical drives will be created in the size of the donor's flash drive. Also, on a smaller flash drive, you will not be able to write an image of a larger flash drive, even if most of the image is empty space.

The program interface is divided into four logical parts. At the very top, in the "Step 1" section, there is a list of removable USB drives connected to the computer. Here the user can select the desired disks with which he is going to work. In the section signed "Step 2" available operations with removable drives, where all the settings available for ImageUSB users are collected. In the "Step 3" line, select the disk image that we are going to restore or where you want to save the "cast" of the flash drive. Finally, in the "Step 4" point, you need to click the "Create" button to start the process of saving or restoring. At the very bottom, you can see the ImageUSB operation log and there are buttons that link to the official website, help section, information about the utility and closing the program.

Briefly go over the most important points in the "Step 2" section, then:

• "Write image to USB drive" is responsible for writing the selected images to the selected removable USB storage media.
• "Create image from USB drive" allows you to save an image of the selected USB flash drive.
• "Zero USB drive" responsible for deleting data on selected removable USB drives.
• "Reformat USB drive (Windows Vista or later)" allows you to format a USB flash drive to another file system, saving the data.

It is also possible to enable verification of the recorded data, beep at the end of the copy / write process and fully use the space on the flash drive if the image size is smaller, but only the NTFS file system is used and there is only one partition.

The program will constantly warn that the user can erase data from the flash drive or delete files from the computer. After each completed operation, a large window will pop up, painted with bright colors. Finally, ImageUSB requires updating the list of drives connected to USB ports after each completed operation, otherwise it will refuse to do something further.

ImageUSB, in principle, does its job of creating and restoring images of USB flash drives. However, there are more convenient and friendly free utilities with similar capabilities. This program can be advised for people who need to multiply one image on many flash drives.

The program runs on 32 and 64-bit versions of the operating system. The interface of the program is translated only into English, if you do not know it, you can arm yourself with a dictionary to figure out what to press and which items to choose.

ImageUSB Free Download Page - https://www.osforensics.com/tools/write-usb-images.html

Program size: archive 1.06MB

Compatibility: Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8 and 10

Many of us use USB flash drives in our daily life to transfer and store files. Flash is convenient for editing documents directly from it, both at work and at home, and in general, wherever you are, since all the necessary work files are always with you.

A flash drive, as a rule, is used in various weather conditions: rain, dampness, frost, subject to mechanical damage, electromagnetic waves, can be lost or stolen, etc. The only reliable way to keep your data is to back up your flash drive to your PC or laptop hard drive on a daily basis.

Flash drive backup options. Which to choose?

If you are not yet using Exiland Backup and you have lost a file from a USB flash drive, this is the place for you.

Fulfill backup files of a flash drive possible on various media:

• computer hard or solid-state drive (HDD, SSD)
• external USB disk (removable HDD)
• network drive, NAS server on the local network
• to the Yandex.Disk cloud or Google Drive
• remote server via FTP, SFTP (SSH)

Let's look at an example of how to organize automatic backup of USB-disk (flash-media) to your PC hard drive every 3 hours.

To create backup flash drives, you can develop bat-files or copy files manually, but this is the worst option, because you can forget to create a backup in time, and you often have to be distracted by creating backups.

We will not "reinvent the wheel", since people have already invented and developed automatic backup programs, but consider one of them, namely, the easy-to-use, reliable Exiland Backup utility, which backs up the specified files and folders from one media at specified intervals. on the other and does it almost imperceptibly, without interfering with the work of other programs.

Moreover, Exiland Backup has the ability to run a task to create a backup copy of a flash drive immediately after it is connected to the USB port of your PC. This is very convenient - I plugged the USB flash drive into the PC, a backup copy was created within a few seconds.

Let's take a look at how Exiland Backup makes it easy and just set up a backup of the flash drive to your PC hard drive.

How to back up a USB flash drive. Setting up Exiland Backup

Exiland Backup has special features for working with flash drives.

In the "Parameters of the selected folder" window, you can specify additional folder parameters: file masks, attributes, as well as excluding subfolders, for example, everything except the "Temp" and "_old" folders.

An excellent feature of this program is support for paths by volume name, for example, the source folder can be specified as : \ Source \ Folder, where FLESHKA is the volume name of the flash drive. This solves the problem when a USB flash drive in Windows is connected under different drive letters. Thus, if the removable disk is connected under a different drive letter, you will not have to reconfigure anything in the program. It is very comfortable.

At the 4th step (ZIP compression parameters) you can leave the default settings and click "Next"

Exiland Backup allows you to compress source files and folders into one ZIP archive with a specified compression ratio and selected encryption (setting a password to the ZIP archive).

At the 5th step, tell the program where to save backups

Click "Add - Local / Network Folder". A window will appear in which you should specify the path to the folder on the hard drive of your PC or laptop, for example "D: \ Backups".

This can be done through the folder selection dialog (from the same dialog you can create the "Backups" or "Backups" folder).

As in the case of source data selection, here the program also supports the ability to specify a path by volume name... This is especially useful when saving backups to removable disks. Windows OS can assign different letters to the drive every time a removable HDD or flash drive is connected.

At the 6th step, specify the schedule for starting the backup

The recommended backup frequency depends on how often you work with flash media. Usually, the normal frequency is to back up once every 4 hours. Making several backups (backups) during the working day is usually sufficient.

Moreover, if the data on the flash has not changed at all, Exiland Backup will not create a backup copy, but will simply write about it in the log (journal). If during the start of the backup the flash drive was not connected to the USB port of your PC - nothing bad will happen, Exiland Backup will simply skip the task. You can also tell Exiland Backup to "start backing up a flash drive when it is connected to your PC's USB port", which is undoubtedly another advantage of the program.

So, toggle the checkbox (*) Run on schedule, select the Schedule type "daily", click the "Change" button. To add a start time, click the Add button and select Periodically, select Every 4 Hours and click OK. The selected value appears in the list.

Press the "Add" button again and select "When connecting a removable device (flash drive, removable HDD, etc.)", tell the program to backup files each time a USB device is connected, or only on the first connection during the current day, then click OK and OK again to return to the Schedule step and click Next.

Step 7: notification

Click "Finish" here. Although the program allows you to send a notification about the results of the backup in various cases (in case of errors, in case of warnings, in any case), but in this case ( backup flash drive), That is unnecessary.

The USB flash drive backup task has been created! When the launch schedule arrives or when the flash drive is connected, the backup will begin. Also, nothing prevents you from starting the task manually by clicking on the "Run" button on the top panel.

Other features of the Exiland Backup utility

Exiland Backup differs from its counterparts in an understandable Russian-language interface and combines good features and flexibility of settings.

Usually the amount of data on flash drives is small: 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 GB. Exiland Backup also does an excellent job of backing up large amounts of data 1-2 terabytes, has a high copy speed, thanks to copying in multiple streams, can make not only a full backup, but also create incremental backups, differential backups, and synchronize folders over the local network , FTP, SFTP (SSH). Therefore, the utility is able to make a backup of the site via FTP, made on any CMS, for example, on WordPress.

With the automatic program Exiland Backup, you will once and for all protect your files from virus damage, failure of your flash device, etc.

The Exiland Backup utility is quite versatile and is perfect for backing up home files - photos, videos, documents, and for use in organizations (copying documents, accounting databases, etc.). The program can be used by both novice PC users and more experienced specialists (system administrators and programmers).

The test drive for backing up the flash drive showed good results.

Michael, developer of Exiland Backup

Navigate to the folder with the files you want to copy. Open the Explorer window; to do this, click ⊞ Win + E... Scroll down the left pane with the list of drives and folders to find the folder with the files you want.

• User files are usually stored in the Documents or My Documents folder.
• If you're looking for photos or music, go to your Pictures or Music folder.

Insert the flash drive into a USB port on your computer. On a desktop computer, USB ports are located on the front and / or rear of the chassis, and sometimes on the back of the monitor. The laptop's USB ports are located on the side panels.

Find the folder on the flash drive where you will copy the files. They can be copied to any folder on the flash drive.

• When you plug the drive into your computer, a pop-up window will likely open. In it, find the option "Open folder to view files" (or similar). Click on this option to navigate to the root (main) folder of your flash drive. Files can be copied directly to the root folder or to any subfolder.
• If the window does not open, click ⊞ Win + E to open a new File Explorer window, and then double-click the name of your USB drive in the left pane. The name will be “USB storage”, “Removable disk” or similar. Also, the name of the manufacturer of the drive (for example, "Sandisk") can be used as a name.
• Create a new folder and give it a name that matches its contents. To create a new folder on your flash drive, press Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + N, and then enter a name (for example, "Personal", "Photos", and the like). Now press ↵ Enter... Double click on the new folder to open it.

Sometimes, users think about creating an image from a flash drive, especially a bootable one. This may be necessary in many cases, but the most common is the transfer of all data from one drive to another.

It is not so difficult to create an image, however, in most cases it will not be in iso format, although this is not entirely correct. This is because the iso was created for copy discs, despite the fact that the format itself can be written to any drive. However, you can still write a flash drive to iso, and this article will present several ways to do this.

Using UltraISO to create an image

This application is very popular with Russian users. Has a clear and accessible interface, allows you to create and record images. There are several ways to do this.

In the first case, you will need to click on the drive itself and drag it to the part of the window that is responsible for the list of files in the program.

The next window will have agree with the transfer data. In the menu item, you need to click on the item responsible for extracting the boot data from the disk and saving it to your device. Then, in the same menu item, select “ Upload download file". After that, you can go to File - Save As. Here you can select the iso format and save all data. This completes the creation of the copy. However, you can doima file, which will be better, tk. this format is designed to work with storage devices.

This is much easier to do. You just need to click on the marked item and select the drive from which the byte copying will be performed. In this case, the carrier will copied completely, even empty data. That is, if there is only one data on a 4 GB flash drive, the image will still take four.

Using the USB Image Tool

It doesn't take long to create a copy with this app. You need to download and install it. After starting, on the left side of the screen, the user sees all drives. Select the desired and to pushbackup... This will produce an img file that contains all the data from the drive.

To record the created image, you can use the same utility. Just press the left button. However, this is more of a data backup. It is impossible to write the received file to another drive, only back to the same one.

PassMark ImageUSB App to Create Full Copy

This program does not even require the user to install it on a computer. It only needs download and run.

After launch, you only need select media to be copied. In the second step, you should select the same as in the picture. In the third paragraph, you need to specify the directory in which the final file will be saved. Then it remains to press Create and wait for the end of the process. To write a file, you need to select the first item in the second step.

ImgBurn Utility

This program will create an image from a disk or from a folder. To get started, you need to select the item indicated in the image.

After that, in the next window you will need to specify the flash drive as a source. To do this, you can click on the marked icon.

You will also need to go to tabAdvanced on the right side of the screen and set the same settings as in the image. This will turn the created image into a bootable one. If this is not necessary, then this item can be skipped.

As you can see from the article, create an image from a drive is not that difficult if it's just a file. If you need to make a bootable image, then you should use specialized utilities.