How to create a system image on a 64GB thumb drive?

Aaaaaaaaand apparently nobody has an answer.

Have you looked into the features of popular disk image maker software like Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost, to see if they support making images to USB drives?

Alternatively, boot into an Ubuntu live CD, plug in the USB drive, and issue a command like one of these:


http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/ddcommand.htm

Norton Ghost, at least when I last used it a few years ago definitely supported imaging to a USB drive. I would imagine Acronis could do the same.

Acronis True Image is great.

If you have either a Western Digital or Seagate drive (internal or USB attached) you can get a free version of Acronis TI.

Acronis TI ignores the Hibernation and Pagefile's. It then compresses (if selected) the rest. The second highest compression is optimal for most.

Compression size varies. Videos aren't compressed, but the coding for programs is. 50% to 60% of the original size is typical (i.e. 60GB of 100GB used for C-drive)

Tips:
- always use the verify feature
- get a second hard drive (can be USB) and create a new backup at least once per month
- Always keep your first backup in case viruses or other corruption creep into Windows later that you detect too late.
- I have an AUTOMATED setup (bought the full version).
- I also use the free version of Syncbackse to backup my "Documents" folder DAILY to my second drive

- occasionally delete all the files in your TEMP folder (type "%temp%" with no quotes into the Start Menu bar, select the folder, highlight all and delete. SKIP anything it asks you about. Those are just the latest files it's protected until a reboot probably.)

I thought windows doesn't support the use of external drives as boot drives. win8 will.

BTW waiting 8 hours before complaining about not getting an answer is a spoilt way to behave, if you want instant answers pay for them, or research them yourself.

How big is the Syetem, ie is it for a 120/128 gig SSD using about 35->40 gig??
What Operating system.

If windows 7 and for a SSD using only 35->50 gigs. Can be done by simply using windows 7 backup function located in windows Control Panel. It will Image both the little 100 Meg system partion and the "C" drive. As to placing it directily on the USB thumbdrive you may have to formate it as Fat32 or NTSF (Not sure which). It will let you know as it will, or will not, come up as an available sourse drive.
If it does not, simply let it create it to the 2nd HDD and Copy to thumbdrive (AS LONG as it is smaller than the thumbdrive) and yes I've done this and used it to restore to An SSD.

Hi GoldenI

how much did the 64 gig thumb drive cost ?

uk prices start at about £45 upto £55

there are fake drives which have been modified to report 8 times their real capacity
any data beyond real capacity is lost for ever
there are also cheap drives made from rejected / faulty memory chips

H2testw -- by Harald Bögeholz of c't Magazin is useful for testing (cheap) usb or flash memory cards

regards

Mike Barnes

If you are using W7 simply go here: Control Panel\System and Security\Backup and Restore, and then from the menu on the left select Create a System Image.

Make sure you have your thumb drive already inserted and it should show up in the list of Hard Disk to select copying your image too.

To clarify above you can boot windows 7 from a USB device as a boot drive.