Complete copying of a flash drive to a flash drive. Create an exact copy of a flash drive using the USB Image Tool. Backing up a USB device

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), you need to copy someone else’s bootable flash drive that needs to be given away, etc.

Is it possible to copy a bootable USB flash drive? Simple copying is not possible, because the flash drive will not be bootable; when you start the computer, you will not be able to start installing Windows 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.

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

It makes sense to check the created bootable USB flash drive to be sure that it will not fail at the crucial moment when you need to reinstall or restore Windows. When checking a bootable flash 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 flash drive in UltraISO (method 1)

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

To copy a bootable USB flash drive image, you will need to perform the following steps:

Connect a bootable Windows USB flash drive to your computer's USB port.
Launch the UltraISO program.
Enter the "Boot" menu. In the context menu, select “Create a floppy disk image...” or “Create a hard disk image...” (both options work the same).

In the “Create a diskette image” window, in the “Disk drive” item, select the drive letter that is designated in Explorer for the bootable flash drive connected to the computer. In the “Save As” settings item, select a location to save the disk or floppy image. By default, the 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 you have enough free disk space on your computer. After copying the flash drive is completed, this file is no longer needed and can be deleted.

Click on the "Make" button.

Next, in the “Process” window, a disk image file is created.

The “Hint” window that opens will inform you that the creation of the disk image has been successfully completed.

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 flash drive from the computer; it is no longer needed.
In the UltraISO program, go to the “File” menu, click “Open ...”, select the “boot.ima” file.

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 a flash drive (refer to its designation in Explorer, name and size of disk space)
You can check the “Check” box to check the recorded flash drive for errors
in the "Image file" field, check the path to the source disk image
in the “Recording method” option, select “USB-HDD+”

Click on the "Record" button.

In the “Hint” window, agree that all information will be deleted from the disk.

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

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

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

The second method assumes that you first need to copy the bootable USB flash drive into ISO format, which is then written to another flash drive. When carrying out this operation, a system image was created in ISO format without booting, however, when checked, the copied flash drive with the Windows 10 operating system booted on my computer.

Follow these steps:

Connect to your computer a bootable USB flash drive with Windows and an empty USB flash drive to which you want to copy the data.
Log in to UltraISO.
Highlight the bootable USB drive in the Directory area, and then drag it to the New Project area.

In the Prompt window, agree to add all files to the disk.
After this, the contents of the bootable USB flash drive will be displayed in the new project area.
Enter the “File” menu, select “Save as...” from the context menu.
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.
The Process window displays the process of saving the ISO file to your computer.
After saving the file on your computer, go to the “File” menu and select “Open...” from the context menu.
In the Explorer window, select the previously saved ISO image.

Enter the "Boot" menu, select "Burn Hard Disk Image..."
In the “Write Disk image” window, make the following 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” option to make sure that the process of writing to the flash drive went without errors
check that the path to the image file is correct, in this case to the “Windowsiso” image
in the “Recording method” setting, select “USB-HDD+”

Then click on the “Record” button.

In the warning window, agree that all data from the flash drive will be deleted.
Next, after formatting, the process of writing data to the flash drive will begin, which will take some time.
After recording is complete, close the UltraISO program window.

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

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

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

Insert the operating system DVD into your computer's drive.
Connect the USB flash drive to the computer.
In the UltraISO program window, go to the “File” menu, select “Open CD/DVD...”.

In the “Open CD/DVD” window, select your computer’s optical drive and click the “Open” button.
Enter the “Boot” menu, select “Burn Hard Disk Image...”.
In the “Write Disk Image” window, make 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+”

Click on the "Record" button.
Agree to delete all data from the flash drive in the “Hint” window.
After completing the burning process and checking the flash drive, close the UltraISO program.

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

Conclusion

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

Create an image of a flash drive, and then write the image to another flash drive? USB Image Tool is a program for creating images from flash drives and vice versa, you can upload a saved image to a flash drive. The utility creates and restores images in .img and .imz formats (compressed). USB Image Tool is a portable program that can be launched from any folder and from any media. Additionally, in the program directory there is a tool for working with images from the command line (usbitcmd.exe).

An example of creating a copy of a bootable USB flash drive

Suppose there is a bootable flash drive with programs, testing utilities, operating system distribution (for example, Windows, Linux), drivers, and the like. Task: make another similar bootable USB flash drive. Insert the original flash drive, launch the USB Image Tool program and save the image to disk (the "Backup" button). We insert another flash drive and restore the image created from the reference flash drive to it (the "Restore" button).

Official site: http://www.alexpage.de
OS: Windows All
Supported languages: English
Version: 1.58
License:freeware (for free)

Unlike regular data stored on USB flash drives, bootable USB flash drive data cannot be placed on another USB flash drive by simply copying or cutting and pasting files. If, for example, you have a bootable USB flash drive with an operating system installation disk, but the original ISO file is lost, you won’t be able to release the flash drive temporarily by temporarily moving the data to your computer. After moving back to the flash drive, it will not become bootable. Using the same principle, you cannot copy the contents of one bootable flash drive to another. If there is no source ISO file, so that you can use it to create anytime and as many bootable flash drives as you want, you need to resort to the help of special software. It’s easier, of course, to store the original ISO file somewhere and burn it, if necessary, to any USB media. But if with installation disks of operating systems and Live disks for their resuscitation it is only a matter of free space on the hard drive, then with multiboot flash drives for installing several systems it is both a question of free space and a question of the process of creating them.

Below we will look at the simplest way to clone a bootable USB flash drive on a Windows system to another empty flash drive if there is no original ISO file. This method is also suitable for the case when there is only one flash drive available, and it needs to be freed from data for a while and then returned to its original state.

For these purposes, you can use the capabilities of backup programs or disk space managers for Windows. In particular, software assemblies from the developers of Acronis, Paragon, AOMEI Technology provide functionality for backing up and restoring partitions and disks, which can be used to create a backup copy of a bootable flash drive. The created backup copy can later be restored either to the same flash drive or to another. The mentioned programs also provide functionality for directly transferring the contents of a bootable flash drive to another USB drive - this is functionality. Just as a partition or an entire hard drive with an operating system installed can be cloned, a bootable USB flash drive will be cloned in the same way.

In our case, as mentioned, the simplest way to solve the problem will be considered. To transfer the contents of a bootable flash drive, we will use a small free utility, USB Image Tool. It can be downloaded from the developer's website.

USB Image Tool is a portable program that does not require installation on the system. Simply unpack the downloaded archive and run the application file.

The utility is intended only for working with USB media. It works on the principle of creating a backup image of a bootable USB flash drive. The created image in IMG format is subsequently used to restore the contents of the bootable flash drive, either on the original or on any other USB drive.

After launching the USB Image Tool, on the left side of the window we will see a list of all connected USB drives. If there are several devices, select the one you need and click on it. In the right part of the window at the bottom, click the “Backup” button.

We indicate the location on the computer where the bootable flash drive image will be stored. Click “Save”.

We are waiting for the backup process to complete.

Once the image is created, we can restore it to another flash drive. Click on the desired flash drive in the utility window on the left, and at the bottom of the window click the “Restore” button.

Specify the previously saved IMG image. Click “Open”.

We confirm the actions.

The last stage is to wait for the process to complete.

Have a great day!

Backup to USB device, as well as backup of data from flash drives (USB drives) with Handy Backup are done easily and quickly using the Computer plugin. Using the program, you can configure automatic copying to USB devices.

Basic functions of automatic backup to USB device

Backing up data to USB

The main function of a flash drive is data storage, so it is convenient to use a flash drive as a USB backup drive. Handy Backup allows you to use any USB storage device for backup as an external drive.

Backing up a USB device

On the contrary, sometimes you need to transfer a backup copy of data on a USB device to another location (for example, back up a flash drive to a computer). In this case, Handy Backup allows you to backup a USB device as a regular local data source.

A USB backup copy of your data only makes sense if it can be restored at any time. Handy Backup offers tools to automatically restore and even clone USB from backup, as well as manually copy unencrypted USB backups.

Backing up Windows 10 data to a USB flash drive

A problem different from all previous ones is solved by all professional versions of Handy Backup or the included HBDR utility, which allows you to create a backup of Windows 10 (Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Linux...) onto a flash drive as a VHD boot disk image.

To solve the problems described above, Handy Backup provides the user with a number of effective tools that allow you to conveniently and quickly organize automatic backup to a USB flash drive and data recovery. Such tools include:

Video tutorial: How to create an automatic backup when connecting a USB device

This video tutorial provides step-by-step instructions for creating an automatic backup to a flash drive when connecting this USB device to a computer.

Attention: This video assumes that your machine already has Handy Backup installed. Otherwise, please download Handy Backup and install it on your computer.

Automatic copying to a USB flash drive with Handy Backup is a convenient and simple data storage tool. Try it now by downloading and installing a 30-day free, fully functional trial!

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

Creating an image is not that difficult, however, in most cases it will not be in iso format, although this is not entirely correct. This happens because iso was created for disk copying, despite the fact that the format itself can be recorded on any drive. However, it is still possible to burn 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 among Russian users. It 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.

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

It's much easier to do this. You just need to click on the marked item and select the drive from which byte-by-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 up four.

Using the USB Image Tool

Creating a copy using this application will not take much time. You need to download and install it. After launch, the user sees all drives on the left side of the screen. You should select the one you need and pressbackup. This will allow you to get an img file that contains all the data from the drive.

To record the created image, you can use the same utility. You just need to 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 application to create a full copy

This program does not even require the user to install it on the computer. All you need is download and run.

After launch you only need select media, which will 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 you just have to press Create and wait for the process to complete. To record a file, you need to select the first item in the second step.

ImgBurn utility

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

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

It will also be necessary 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 can be seen from the article, create an image from a drive isn't that hard if it's just a file. If you need to make a boot image, then you should use specialized utilities.