Usb Flash Drive use on my m17x r3

Hi! I will be purchasing a 32gb flash drive for my m17x r3. I just have few questions.

1. Is it possible to make a usb flash drive both as a storage and bootable windows 7 installer? If so, how?

2. How can I combine all my drivers and apps in one windows 7 installer so I don't have to manually install them in case I reinstall my system? I know this is possible since I've this on my xp years ago. I just forgot how to do it.

 

I suppose it's possible, not exactly sure how to do what you want though. I just use Acronis True image to create an image of my system once I have everything installed. Than I just boot of a bootable drive, and reimage the system. Works well. But I keep my image on an external since it's normally larger as I create the image after installing all my apps so I don't have to deal with that.

 

Did the first one, but for xp though, I am sure it is possible for windows 7 as well. But for the second one I have no idea I guess you are better off cloning your HDD after you are done with initial setup..

 

i dont think 32 gb will be enough to clone my hdd.lol

 

May be enough for an image though

 

^^ this

 

Yes to both.

1. The bootable USB flash drive contains the boot files in addition to the setup files. There's no reason why you can't put other files there if it has room. In fact, I had a folder with most of the 3rd party apps I need on there for easy installation.

2. You can use RT7Lite to do this I believe. I been meaning to make my own but have yet to get around to doing it. Actually, I've use the others options except for the Integration feature, which is what you'll be needing.

I use VMware to test out the ISOs.

 

After burning the Windows installation files to the USB drive, I create a separate directory on the USB stick called Storage. Then I set up a sub-directory for Drivers and copy the entire c:\Dell\Drivers folder (with fully unpacked files), plus any other drivers needed (Nvidia or AMD display drivers, etc.). I also create sub-directories for Utilities, R3 Manuals and MS Office installation files, but after Drivers, the rest is optional. When installing Windows from the USB stick, you can just drag and drop the Drivers folder to the c: drive and install from there. It's not automatic, but it saves a great deal of time locating, organizing, transferring and unzipping the various driver files. And it is easily updated the next time you need to do a fresh install. All that only takes a little over 6GB, so there's plenty of room for whatever else you want instant access to during the installation and setup phase.

 

I use the Revelators method only I keep all the original install files in a directory and sub directories with each type of driver (video, wifi, RST etc). I also had the directories start with a letter so they are in alphabetical order with order of installation. It makes fresh instAlls very fast. When I download a new driver I just paste the install file into the appropriate directory and delete the old one. This way my install directory is up to date.

I also used Windows 7 image to make a backup of my basic windows install with office, all my utilities, etc. It takes about 15gb of space and is faster than a fresh install. I keep my steam games in another backup folder since steam does a great job of backups.

I also plan on making my own 3.0 USB windows stick. I got a 16gb stick from newegg for $15AR on black friday. I don't know it it will be better than a CD but it is more portable.