Bootable USB Image cloning software

[Mayfriday0529]

I just did a complete fresh install on my laptop with a new hard drive. Is there any software like Ghost to make an image clone of the hard drive that can be run from a USB stick?

Or what do you recommend to make the image? I have no floppy drive on the laptop, the hard drive is a 2.5" SATA drive so i don't have an adapter to connect it to my desktop.

 

[corkyg]

Not quite sure what you want to do. I clone my laptop HDD about every two weeks to an external, identical HDD in a 2.5" USB 2/Firewire case. I use Acronis TrueImage 10. The result is a duplicate drive that I swap - immediately bootable.

As for imaging a HDD to a "stick" - I know of no stick big enough to do that for an entire HDD. Maybe a folder, but I haven't seen a stick bigger than 8 GB.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

Originally posted by: corkyg
Not quite sure what you want to do. I clone my laptop HDD about every two weeks to an external, identical HDD in a 2.5" USB 2/Firewire case. I use Acronis TrueImage 10. The result is a duplicate drive that I swap - immediately bootable.

As for imaging a HDD to a "stick" - I know of no stick big enough to do that for an entire HDD. Maybe a folder, but I haven't seen a stick bigger than 8 GB.

I don't want to image a HDD to a USB stick, looking for software to image the HDD to CD/DVD's for easier reinstalling if ever. But was hoping for a imaging software that can be run from a USB stick.

I used to be able to do this a while back with Ghost with two bootable floppy disks.

 

[BlueWeasel]

With Acronis, you can make a bootable CD to run the program from. Simply boot using the CD, make the image (to CD/DVD/HD) and you're done.

To be honest, once I made the bootable CD, I never run it from within Windows and basically uninstall Acronis from the computer. The CD is all I need.

 

[Kappo]

Ghost runs off a USB stick. You just have to look for the HP USB format utility. I use this setup so I know it works. Also, I would provide network drivers so you can just dump it to a share and then burn the CDs later if you feel like it.

 

[networkman]

Originally posted by: Kappo
Ghost runs off a USB stick. You just have to look for the HP USB format utility. I use this setup so I know it works. Also, I would provide network drivers so you can just dump it to a share and then burn the CDs later if you feel like it.

I do the same thing too, both at work and at home - Ghost on a USB stick works great.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

Originally posted by: networkman

Originally posted by: Kappo
Ghost runs off a USB stick. You just have to look for the HP USB format utility. I use this setup so I know it works. Also, I would provide network drivers so you can just dump it to a share and then burn the CDs later if you feel like it.

I do the same thing too, both at work and at home - Ghost on a USB stick works great.

So i need to get Ghost and then make a bootable floppy and them use the HP USB utility? I was just playing with Acronis Trial version and it made a USB rescue device, but it had no options of burning the image to CD, but just to a hard drive.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel
To be honest, once I made the bootable CD, I never run it from within Windows and basically uninstall Acronis from the computer. The CD is all I need.

Likewise! That way the OS does not enter in to the picture and complain about sharing violations.

The real question is, does your system boot from USB flash memory sticks? That depends on your BIOS. None of my systems will do that, so the CD boot is the winner.

If your system can boot from a flash drive, then Acronis will work there also - the bootable media can be put on the stick.

I always feel sorry for people stuck with Symantec products.

 

[Joemonkey]

Originally posted by: Jnetty99

Originally posted by: networkman

Originally posted by: Kappo
Ghost runs off a USB stick. You just have to look for the HP USB format utility. I use this setup so I know it works. Also, I would provide network drivers so you can just dump it to a share and then burn the CDs later if you feel like it.

I do the same thing too, both at work and at home - Ghost on a USB stick works great.

So i need to get Ghost and then make a bootable floppy and them use the HP USB utility? I was just playing with Acronis Trial version and it made a USB rescue device, but it had no options of burning the image to CD, but just to a hard drive.

search google for it. I know with ghost there were a ton of tutorial sites to get a USB boot device w/ CD drivers so you could boot to the USB device then span the image over CDs or DVDs