Windows 7 What's the simple way to make a flash drive that can be used to rescue Windows platforms?

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KCav

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I have 4 PCs running Windows. I make image files of the system partition of each one and store the image files on a USB hard drive. I would like to create a flash drive that can be used on any of the PCs and which boots to a menu. From the menu I would like to select the appropriate image file for the PC and be able to restore it from the external hard drive to the internal hard drive.

Recently MSE detected a virus on one of the PCs but could not remove it. So I downloaded Windows Defender Offline, then I downloaded software to unpack WDO and was able to install WDO on a flash drive. I ran WDO from the flash drive and it too detected but did not remove the virus. I had to make a fresh install. I downloaded an ISO of Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit and installed it on a Flash drive. Then I reinstalled Windows and began updating. These tasks took a week. I do not want to go through this agaiin. Can someone help me find a simple wat to boot from a flash drive an install an image file.

Two of the PCs run Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit, the other two run Windows XP Professional 32-bit. All have Seagate hard drives and the external USB hard drive is made by Seagate. I would like to have diagnostic tools on the Flash drive that I could use to diagnose problems and I would like to be able to repartiotion the hard drives. What software should I use? Right now the PC which had the virus has a 320 GB SATA. i would like to create 2 logical drives on it. By having a seperate drive for system files I could have a smaller image file of the system partition that would consum less storage space, and I could clean the drive and degragment it, and back it faster. What software should I use to partition the drive?

I bet that someone with more experience than I can tell me the bets way to do these things. Would appreciate your help. Its been a frustrating week.
 
Solution
Hi

You can partition the drive in Windows 7 using Disk Manager, it's pretty easy to do.

Create and format a hard disk partition

Windows 7 will also create a bootable disk, in system backup, I don't know of any reason that you can't put the files on a USB stick if you have your computers set to boot from it.

Create a system repair disc

And...

How to create a bootable Windows 7 USB flash drive | Ars Technica

That's would take care of the Windows 7 computers.

For Windows XP I'm a little rusty but I think you will have to use a backup program that will create the backup and the disk, like Acronis True Image, (It may create a bootable USB stick, but I'm not sure).

That seems to be the most popular one around here...
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MikeHawthorne said:
Hi

While I make backups of all my drives with Acronis, I also just copy all of my really important files to a folder on my external drive.
In my case I do this on a separate external hard drive from my other backups.

Mike
Click to expand...

I plan to encrypt my data files and store them in the Cloud for protection from fire on premise, that sort of threat. Will Acronis be good to use for this?

Maybe I should do what you do. I have setup a network drive on my desktop PC that is really a folder that appears as a drive on PCs connectd to the LAN. I store copies of Data files there so when a notbook is not connected to the LAN the files are still available. Maybe I should make copies of all the data files in a local folder, then move the folder to my network drive once a week. It would be nice to use a script file for this. Do you use script files?

KCav
 
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I down loaded DiskWizard from the Seagate website and used it to make a bootable flash drive ona 4GB stick. When I booted from the flash drive it loaded DiskWizard, and with DiskWizard I restored my System partition from an image file stored on my external USB hard drive. DiskWizard is made by Acronis and its available for free. It downloaded quickly and installed easily. But one thing I can't do is store an image file on the DiskWizard Flash drive because its FAT32 format.

KCav
 
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