Looking for an app to image my USB drives.....

[jim]

I have some USB flash drives that I'd like to image - just in case I screw
them up or lose them - but I can't find any software that backs up USB flash
drives as complete images.

Some of my drives have several partitions, so the USB drive needs to be
imaged completely - just like you can do with an internal hard drive.

I have Acronis True Image Home 11 but it won't even see the USB flash
drives.

Have you seen software used to image USB drives?

jim

 

[jim]

If your system recognizes the flash drives as a USB hard drive then TI
will work. If the system sees them as something else - like a flash
drive - it won't.

Are they formatted NTFS?

They are formatted with 3 partitions - FAT32, Ext2 and LinuxSwap. They are
used to run Linux from USB drives for system and network utilities.

jim

 

[Big_Al]

I have some USB flash drives that I'd like to image - just in case I screw
them up or lose them - but I can't find any software that backs up USB flash
drives as complete images.

Some of my drives have several partitions, so the USB drive needs to be
imaged completely - just like you can do with an internal hard drive.

I have Acronis True Image Home 11 but it won't even see the USB flash
drives.

Have you seen software used to image USB drives?

jim

Probably because of the relatively small size and lack of complexity
there will not be support for it yet. Normally USB drives contain no
boot info etc, *normally*. A zip file backup is all I do. That or
just copy to another HD.

 

[Frank-FL]

I have some USB flash drives that I'd like to image - just in case I screw
them up or lose them - but I can't find any software that backs up USB flash
drives as complete images.

Some of my drives have several partitions, so the USB drive needs to be
imaged completely - just like you can do with an internal hard drive.

I have Acronis True Image Home 11 but it won't even see the USB flash
drives.

Have you seen software used to image USB drives?

Use the bootable Acronis CD
ATI Home (full) not the (safe)
Backup
My Data
Removable Drive

Back up what you want to where you want.

 

[jim]

Use the bootable Acronis CD
ATI Home (full) not the (safe)
Backup
My Data
Removable Drive

Back up what you want to where you want.

Nope. It only "sees" the FAT32 partition - not the Ext2 or LinuxSwap
partitions.

Nice try though.

jim

 

[Fred S *****]

Nope. It only "sees" the FAT32 partition - not the Ext2 or LinuxSwap
partitions.

Nice try though.

jim

Jim,

I hope you've considered a simple thing like creating the needed
partitions followed by a COPY to the second external.

If space is the issue and you need the compression then you might need
to image.

Consider Terrabyte's Image for Windows or even Boot-It-NG - both of
these create images based on the bios - so it the drive shows it will
be able to image.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/products.htm

I just tested it using my Kanguru USB 2 thumb drive, created an image
with no problem, then erased the thumb drive, then restored the image -
worked just fine.

In my opinion, Terrabyte's products are solid - I've used them for years
on all kinds of systems. This company was the favorite of the MVP's here
for years and in particular when the late Alex Nichols was the patriarch
of the group.

Fred

 

[jim]

Jim,

I hope you've considered a simple thing like creating the needed
partitions followed by a COPY to the second external.

If space is the issue and you need the compression then you might need to
image.

Consider Terrabyte's Image for Windows or even Boot-It-NG - both of these
create images based on the bios - so it the drive shows it will be able to
image.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/products.htm

I just tested it using my Kanguru USB 2 thumb drive, created an image with
no problem, then erased the thumb drive, then restored the image - worked
just fine.

In my opinion, Terrabyte's products are solid - I've used them for years
on all kinds of systems. This company was the favorite of the MVP's here
for years and in particular when the late Alex Nichols was the patriarch
of the group.

Sweet!

I'll test it and report back in a few minutes.....

jim

 

[jim]

Sweet!

I'll test it and report back in a few minutes.....

jim

Terabyte's product definitely did the job. The only down sides are (a)
having to boot to DOS to do the image of the USB drives (if Acronis can
backup Windows while it runs from Windows backing up a USB drive from
Windows seems trivial by comparison) and (b) it is reeeeaaaalllllyyyyy slow.
It took almost 20 minutes to backup a USB 2.0 8GB drive and a full 58
minutes to restore it.

Still, its better than losing your data, and its the only software solution
I have found to create copmplete images of bootable Linux USB drives as of
this writing.

Thanks for pointing it out!

Jim

 

[Bill in Co.]

Terabyte's product definitely did the job. The only down sides are (a)
having to boot to DOS to do the image of the USB drives (if Acronis can
backup Windows while it runs from Windows backing up a USB drive from
Windows seems trivial by comparison) and (b) it is reeeeaaaalllllyyyyy
slow.
It took almost 20 minutes to backup a USB 2.0 8GB drive and a full 58
minutes to restore it.

Still, its better than losing your data, and its the only software
solution
I have found to create copmplete images of bootable Linux USB drives as of
this writing.

Thanks for pointing it out!

Jim

Come to think of it, maybe BING will also let you partition copy one USB
drive to another. I bet it will! But you do have to boot up on a
floppy, or on another USB drive, (in Maintenance Mode), and do it "down
there" at the DOS level - and NOT in Windows. Interesting. Guess we all
learn something here.

 

[Fred S *****]

Terabyte's product definitely did the job. The only down sides are (a)
having to boot to DOS to do the image of the USB drives (if Acronis can
backup Windows while it runs from Windows backing up a USB drive from
Windows seems trivial by comparison) and (b) it is reeeeaaaalllllyyyyy slow.
It took almost 20 minutes to backup a USB 2.0 8GB drive and a full 58
minutes to restore it.

Still, its better than losing your data, and its the only software solution
I have found to create copmplete images of bootable Linux USB drives as of
this writing.

Thanks for pointing it out!

Jim

Jim,

I have BOTH, Image for DOS and Image for Windows. THe latter runs in
Windows and that's what I used for your test project. Better yet, when
you buy image for windows, you get image for DOS free.

Glad I could help.

Fred