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    Windows 8.1 system image backup

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by heehee62, Jan 9, 2015.

  1. heehee62

    heehee62 Notebook Consultant

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    I want to create a bootable backup flash drive for in case my win 8.1 pro laptop gets completely messed up and I need to reinstall everything (including OS) back onto my laptop.

    I went to system image backup and a stuck a 16 GB flash drive (shows 14.86 GB usable) that I just formatted for NTFS.

    Windows is telling me that flash drive is not a valid backup location.

    Why is that? My laptop doesn't have a disk drive so my system backup has to be on a flash drive. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

    Thanks.
     
    heehee62, Jan 9, 2015
    #1
  2. Dragnoak

    Dragnoak Notebook Evangelist

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    Try this:

    Create a USB recovery drive - Windows Help
     
    Dragnoak, Jan 9, 2015
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  3. tijo

    tijo Sacred Blame

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    If you want a full system image backup, I'd go with Macrium Reflect (geez, I sound like a broken record about that software), make a full system image to an external HDD (I doubt a flash drive will be large enough for a full system backup) and also make a bootable Macrium recovery media using a flash drive or DVD. If anything happens, boot from the recovery drive, point it to the system image, profit!

    Macrium is far from the only software that allows you to do this, but it is free and user friendly.
     
    tijo, Jan 12, 2015
    #3
    HTWingNut likes this.
  4. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    I love Macrium. The free edition is so powerful. It just works.

    Problem is that I wanted to make a 256GB USB 3.0 drive and store images on there along with the Reflect bootable USB, but stupid UEFI spec they chose FAT32 as the readable bootable FS, so it won't see more than 4GB. :mad: And there's no way to partition a USB flash drive either, at least not easily nor one that Windows will read without trickery.
     
    HTWingNut, Jan 14, 2015
    #4
  5. ViciousXUSMC

    ViciousXUSMC Master Viking NBR Reviewer

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    I use Acronis for my backup/restore solution at home but 99.9999999% of the time I never end up using my backups and just install the OS fresh again when/if the time comes that I need to do so.

    At work I use the Dell K2000 appliance and PXE boot via the NIC to capture/restore images and I can plug in various scripting/tasks to automate the installation of software and other administrative things.
     
    ViciousXUSMC, Jan 14, 2015
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  6. SL2

    SL2 Notebook Deity

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    I guess you mean setting the USB drive to non-removable (removable bit)? I've never done it myself, but it's supposed to be possible to have multiple partitions after that.
     
    SL2, Jan 14, 2015
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