Usb Flash Copy Full Version

Overview

ImageUSB is a free utility which lets you write an image concurrently to multiple USB Flash Drives. Capable of creating exact bit-level copies of USB Flash Drive (UFDs), ImageUSB is an extremely effective tool for the mass duplication of UFDs. ImageUSB also supports writing of an ISO file byte by byte directly to an USB drive (*). ImageUSB can also be used to install OSFClone to a USB Drive for use with PassMark OSForensics™.

Unlike other USB duplication tools, ImageUSB can preserve all unused and slack space during the cloning process, including the Master Boot Record (MBR). ImageUSB can perform flawless mass duplications of all UFD images, including bootable UFDs.

Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool is a tool that allows you create a copy of your Windows 7 ISO on a USB flash drive or a DVD. All you need is a USB stick with sufficient storage space and the Windows 7 ISO file. For more information on this, follow this guide. Format fs=ntfs quick (If you want to create UEFI bootable USB in diskpart, format it as FAT32. Type format fs=fat32 quick as instead) active. In Windows 8/10, right-click the ISO file and select Burn Disc Image, then follow the on-screen instructions to finish the rest of steps. Keeping 'Ctrl' key pressed while inserting flash drive bypasses logging and copying. If you rename the extension of a log file 'aucno' to 'aucyes' and if you keep only some files in this log file, during the next insertion, these files will be copied first. To unlimit 'Max. Total size to copy' and/or 'Max. File size to copy. USB Copy Protection software runs on the Windows platform. We can copy the files to USB and the software only allows you to view the files on the USB drive. We cannot modify or copy the same to other resources without permission. The file cannot be deleted or printed from the USB. It protects media files and also PDF, Word, and other documents.

imageUSB includes functionality to Zero a USB Flash Drive. This will replace the contents of the entire drive with 0s. Or alternatively to just Zero the MBR and/or GPT entries that exists on the drive. In addition, imageUSB has the ability to reformat even hard to format drives and reclaim any disk space that may be lost previously.

(*) CD ISO images use a different file systems compared to USB drives. So the direct imaging of ISO9660, Joliet or UDF file system, from a CD, to a USB drive, might not allow the USB drive to function in all operating systems. A reformat can recover the drive however. As of V1.5, imageUSB now supports extraction of ISO contents onto USB Drive.

Warning: Due to the forensic nature of image duplication by ImageUSB, please ensure that you select UFDs with a storage size similar to the image you wish to duplicate. For example, if a 2GB image is copied to an 8GB USB Flash Drive, the drive will only be able to use two out of the eight gigabytes of storage space. In this scenario, users will need to reformat the UFD in order to access the rest of the storage space.

Download

The current version of ImageUSB is v1.5.1003(*) (2449 KB).

Previous versions

Installation Instructions

Download ImageUSB.zip from the link above and extract the contents of the archive to a directory of your choosing.
To start using ImageUSB, double click on the ImageUSB.exe application.

Price & License

ImageUSB is a free utility. You can use it & distribute it in an unmodified form as long as credit is given. You can't sell it and we don't offer any warranty. Use at your own risk. PassMark Software is not responsible for any lost or destroyed data.

System Requirements

Release history

Release 1.5.1003

WIN32 release 25 Sep 2020

-Fixed bug where user is unable to select a read-only file for writing to UFD.

Release 1.5.1002

WIN32 release 24 Aug 2020

-Detected bootable ISOs will have their primary partition marked active.

-Fixed bug where the progress bar would rollover and show incorrect progress on writing ISOs over 4GB.

-When writing ISOs, user can now select either FAT32 or NTFS. If file within ISO is greater than 4GB, NTFS will be used irregardless of selection.

Release 1.5.1001

WIN32 release 20 Nov 2019

-Fixed a bug where images created with V1.5.1000 had incorrect imageUSB header and was not being subsequently recognized by imageUSB. If using other imaging tools, specify an offset of 512 bytes to skip the header

Release 1.5.1000

WIN32 release 25 Oct 2019

-Support for extraction the contents of the ISO image.

EXPERIMENTAL - Software will try to detect if ISO image is bootable and if so write appropriate bootloader. As of release only booting through UEFI seems to be working. Tested with Windows 10 ISO, Linux (Porteus-5.0rc, Ubuntu-19.04 and Mint 19.2 ISO images). NOT ALL ISO IMAGES WILL WORK. This functionality is experimental and may be removed from software at any time.

Log moved into it's own Window to allow for larger visible USB Drive List.

Release 1.4.1003

WIN32 release 16 Apr 2019

-Fixed bug where formmatting as NTFS may cause imageUSB to crash.

-Fixed bug where formattting as FAT32 for smaller drive would fail.

-Added imaging precheck for desintation freespace and allowed max file size for destination filesystem when creating image.

Release 1.4.1002

WIN32 release 21 Feb 2019

-Fixed bug where the software was incorrectly reporting/trying to clear the BitLocker status of the drive when detection failed.

Release 1.4.1001

WIN32 release 11 Feb 2019

-Fixed issue with failure with overwriting BitLocked drives. imageUSB will now use VDS to force format the BitLocked volume before proceeding with writing the image.

-Fixed several possible crashes related to writing to log file.

Release 1.4.1000

WIN32 release 06 Nov 2018

-Extend Partition will add a new partition to fill remaining space when writing image smaller than drive if extending is not an option. New Partition will be formatted using NTFS. If more than one drive is selected in the write imaging processing. Due to likely disk signature collusion, drives may be placed offline by Windows. As such Extend or Add Partition may only work on first drive selected.

-Fixed bug where the Cancel Button on the Yes/No/Cancel Dialog Prompt before Imaging doesn't do anything. Should Now correctly cancel operation.

-Up total drive limit to 50 drives. All drives connected to computer (irregardless if they are USB drives) are counted toward this total. Note: We have never tested this many drives at once.

-Dropped support for Windows XP, minimum OS supported is now Windows Vista.

Release 1.3.1006

WIN32 release 13 Mar 2018

-Fixed word wrapping issue in log after resizing window.

-Should now run on WindowsXP SP3 again. Support for Windows XP may be dropped in the future.

Release 1.3.1005

WIN32 release 12 Mar 2018

-Main Window is resizable vertically.

-Fixed possible write failure bug when trying to reimage a drive that may have not have a mount point assigned (i.e. drive letter) to its volumes. imageUSB would fail to properly lock/unmount volume. As seen in MemTest86 on some Windows 10 machines.

Release 1.3.1004

WIN32 release 19 Oct 2017

-Added FAT32 as a format option.

-Fixed a bug with partition extension not operating correctly on NTFS partitions after imaging.

Release 1.3.1002

WIN32 release 16 Sep 2016

-Fixed a bug causing imageUSB to incorrectly fail a verification by reading more bytes than available on the destination image/drive.

-Fixed a bug on Windows XP where the GUI log would display an unknown character at the end of each line.

Release 1.3.1001

WIN32 release 26 Apr 2016

-Fixed a bug causing imageUSB to incorrectly write the header block back to the disk when image is not of even 1 MB chunks.

Release 1.3.1000

WIN32 release 19 Apr 2016

- ImageUSB now supports Physical Disks instead of only volumes assigned drive letters by Windows.

This should allow disks previous not selectable to be imagable. (unformatted drives, Linux drives, etc..)

- Various GUI changes:

ListView changed to TreeView control. This changed is to allow showing of partition information for each drive.

New flashing complete dialog to indicate imaging completion and success or failure.

Running count of number of drives selected for imaging is now displayed.

Release 1.2.1006

WIN32 release 7 Oct 2015

- Addressed issue where extending partition on some NTFS drive would fail if the USB drive (preimaged) was already partitioned as max sized.

Release 1.2.1005

WIN32 release 9 Sep 2015

- Addressed issue where some drives have the same volume GUID and would cause imageUSB unable to determine disk number for the UFD.

Release 1.2.1004

WIN32 release 29 Jul 2015

- Addressed issue during image creation where imageUSB will error out before finishing the image for certain drive.

Release 1.2.1003

WIN32 release 30 Mar 2015

-Format will add an MBR at sector 0 and partition entry table will point to the partition that was formatted.

-Updated Format progress bar to stop and reset when completed.

Release 1.2.1002

WIN32 release 24 Mar 2015

-Updated and added various Text/Strings to be more relevant to the action being performed.

-Added speed in status. Speed is typically govern by the slowest IO (e.g. write). Speed displayed is the

average for the entire process.

-Increased visible GUI log size

Release 1.2.1001

WIN32 release 23 Mar 2015

-Fixed crash when creating Image with Post Image Verification enabled.

Release 1.2.1000

WIN32 release 20 Mar 2015

-Fixed issue when Zeroing GPT formatted drives. Will not correctly zero MBR and Primary GPT and Secondary GPT.

-New Zero behavior. Zeroing will wipe entire drive (write 0x00 to the whole drive).

-Added option to extend partition when writing image. Only supported for single partition images with NTFS filesystem.

-Reformat option will Zero the drive (boot sector only) and reclaim any disk space and format the volume with NTFS filesystem. Requires Vista or later.

Release 1.1.1015

WIN32 release 26 Jun 2014

-Fixed issue when Zeroing GPT formatted drives. Will not correctly zero MBR and Primary GPT and Secondary GPT.

Release 1.1.1014

WIN32 release 16 Dec 2013

-Option to Zero the Master Boot Record. This will allow Windows to see the full size of the drive after reinserting. Windows should

automatically prompt to format unrecognized drive.

-New warning message if you try to write an image located on any of the drives selected as destination drives.

Release 1.1.1013

WIN32 release 16 Oct 2013

-Verify Bug Fix

-In DebugMode, when verifying option is checked and when image is a valid imageUSB .bin file, the checksum will be calculated on

the actual image as well. Drive checksum comparison will still be against checksum stored in header.

Release 1.1.1012

WIN32 release 16 Oct 2013

- Write verification is now supported for images not created with imageUSB. A checksum will be calculated for the image and then compared to the image written on the UFD.

- Enabled UFD list while imageUSB is writing/creating images. Should allow you to scroll the list to see progress of all UFD when more than 4 drives are used.

- Source code clean up

Release 1.1.1011

WIN32 release 18 March 2013

- Added ability to select '.img' files.

Release 1.1.1010

WIN32 release 22 October 2012

-Fixed a program crash when reading fake USB drives. It seems that some USB flash drives are tricking the Windows API to incorrectly recognizing the end of the drive.

Release 1.1.1009

WIN32 release 9 July 2012

-Allows writing images larger than destination drives. End of the image will be truncated and not be written to the drive.

Release 1.1.1008

WIN32 release 19 January 2012

-Added a delay on retry for failed write attempts. Will wait 1 sec before retry.

-Address an issue where writing image would sometimes fail with Error 5: Access is Denied.

Release 1.1.1007

WIN32 release 16 November 2011

-Fixed some erroneous debug logging messages.

-Tweaked verification settings, should report which offset verification failed at.

-For Writing to flash drive, upon write failure, imageUSB will retry up to 3 times to rewrite to the failed location.

Release 1.1.1006

WIN32 release 6 October 2011

-Improved debug logging.

Release 1.1.1005

WIN32 release 6 July 2011

- Added the ability to write .ISO to USB drives. The drive must be bigger than the iso and the drive size will

be truncated to the size of the iso. To recover lost storage, use Window's Disk Management tool.

Release 1.1.1004

WIN32 release 25 January 2011

- Fixed an issue that would occur if more than one drives are being processed at once (happened sporadically).

- Added '-d' command line option that will log additional debug info

- Fixed typos

Release 1.1.1003

WIN32 release 22 December 2010

- Notification/prompt when imaging finishes.

- Option for post image verification for both creating from and writing from usb drives.

Previously, writing to drives always was verified. Verification may double the imaging

time.

- Each image created with imageUSB will have an accompanying log file written with checksum

values calculated during the creation process.

- MD5 & SHA1 checksum calculation implemented

- Now with more warning prompts! To prevent accidently destroying data.

Usb Flash Copy Full Version Free

- Simultaneous image creation is now supported. See the help documentation for naming

convention used.

- Running imageUSB with -l command line will save a log (The same one as seen at the bottom of the GUI).

Release 1.1.1002

WIN32 release 15 December 2010

- Fixed issue with overall progress bar not updating for subsequent writes after aborting.

- Cosmetic / UI changes/fixes

- Signed Executable

Release 1.1.1001

WIN32 release 8 December 2010

- Concurrent image writing to UFD.

- Asthetics Changes.

Release 1.1.1000

WIN32 release 1 December 2010

- GUI version.

Release 1.0.1001

WIN32 release 23 July 2010

- The USB Flash Drive data is now verified.

Release 1.0.1000

WIN32 release 17 June 2010

- First version.

Creating a full Windows backup by using the built it Windows Imaging Tool, Acronis TrueImage, EaseUs Todo Backup, or Macrium Reflect is pretty common for experienced computer users. However, it's recommended for all users to keep backups in case of crashes or hardware failures. If your system is unable to boot, start up the computer with the imaging software's rescue media and it can restore your system back to the time when you created the image.

Imaging is different from just backing up your files or selected folders because a complete copy is created for the whole hard drive or partition and its structure. The problem with some imaging software is it doesn't allow creating backup images for external devices such as a USB flash drive, digital camera, or MP3 player. Or perhaps you prefer not to install a complete software package just to back up a small flash drive.

-Added a delay on retry for failed write attempts. Will wait 1 sec before retry.

-Address an issue where writing image would sometimes fail with Error 5: Access is Denied.

Release 1.1.1007

WIN32 release 16 November 2011

-Fixed some erroneous debug logging messages.

-Tweaked verification settings, should report which offset verification failed at.

-For Writing to flash drive, upon write failure, imageUSB will retry up to 3 times to rewrite to the failed location.

Release 1.1.1006

WIN32 release 6 October 2011

-Improved debug logging.

Release 1.1.1005

WIN32 release 6 July 2011

- Added the ability to write .ISO to USB drives. The drive must be bigger than the iso and the drive size will

be truncated to the size of the iso. To recover lost storage, use Window's Disk Management tool.

Release 1.1.1004

WIN32 release 25 January 2011

- Fixed an issue that would occur if more than one drives are being processed at once (happened sporadically).

- Added '-d' command line option that will log additional debug info

- Fixed typos

Release 1.1.1003

WIN32 release 22 December 2010

- Notification/prompt when imaging finishes.

- Option for post image verification for both creating from and writing from usb drives.

Previously, writing to drives always was verified. Verification may double the imaging

time.

- Each image created with imageUSB will have an accompanying log file written with checksum

values calculated during the creation process.

- MD5 & SHA1 checksum calculation implemented

- Now with more warning prompts! To prevent accidently destroying data.

Usb Flash Copy Full Version Free

- Simultaneous image creation is now supported. See the help documentation for naming

convention used.

- Running imageUSB with -l command line will save a log (The same one as seen at the bottom of the GUI).

Release 1.1.1002

WIN32 release 15 December 2010

- Fixed issue with overall progress bar not updating for subsequent writes after aborting.

- Cosmetic / UI changes/fixes

- Signed Executable

Release 1.1.1001

WIN32 release 8 December 2010

- Concurrent image writing to UFD.

- Asthetics Changes.

Release 1.1.1000

WIN32 release 1 December 2010

- GUI version.

Release 1.0.1001

WIN32 release 23 July 2010

- The USB Flash Drive data is now verified.

Release 1.0.1000

WIN32 release 17 June 2010

- First version.

Creating a full Windows backup by using the built it Windows Imaging Tool, Acronis TrueImage, EaseUs Todo Backup, or Macrium Reflect is pretty common for experienced computer users. However, it's recommended for all users to keep backups in case of crashes or hardware failures. If your system is unable to boot, start up the computer with the imaging software's rescue media and it can restore your system back to the time when you created the image.

Imaging is different from just backing up your files or selected folders because a complete copy is created for the whole hard drive or partition and its structure. The problem with some imaging software is it doesn't allow creating backup images for external devices such as a USB flash drive, digital camera, or MP3 player. Or perhaps you prefer not to install a complete software package just to back up a small flash drive.

For someone with one or two flash drives, it's useful to have full backup copies so you can swap between them when required. Here are 7 free and portable tools that you can use to create backup images of USB memory sticks, hard drives, memory cards, and MP3 players, then restore them when you need to.

ImageUSB is by PassMark software that make tools like Performance Test, BurnInTest, and OSFMount. This little tool is free and portable with a few very handy features such as being able to read and create images from more than one USB flash drive at once and also write a single image back onto more than one flash drive at the same time.

Everything is laid out into numbered steps. Select the USB drive(s) to work on and choose whether to write to the selected drive or create an image from it. Then browse for the backed up file or enter a new name and press the button in step 4 to start the process. You can verify a newly created image or the contents of a written USB drive, uncheck the 'Post Image Verification' box if you don't want to verify.

Backup images are created as uncompressed BIN files. ImageUSB can write those BIN files or ISO image files onto USB. However, writing an ISO file can be troublesome and you might not be able to read the drive contents properly due to the file systems used by ISO images. A log file is created in the same folder for each BIN image which includes MD5/SHA1 checksums for the file and any verification results.

Download PassMark ImageUSB

2. Rufus

Rufus is a USB tool we've mentioned before that can perform a number of different functions such as creating bootable USB media. A lesser known feature added in 2018 is the ability to save the contents of the selected USB drive as a disk image. In this case, the image is saved in the popular Virtual Hard Disk format (VHD). Rufus has an installer version but most users probably just use the portable executable.

Saving the USB device as a VHD file in Rufus is very easy. All you have to do is make sure the USB media to copy is selected in the Device drop down at the top, click 'Show advanced drive properties' and an icon of a floppy disk will appear at the top right. Cick on the icon, give the output file a name, and press Save. The whole of the device will be saved to an uncompressed VHD image.

Writing the VHD file back to USB is just a case of making sure 'Disk or ISO image' is the Boot selection type and pressing the SELECT button to browse for the previously saved VHD file. The useful thing about using the VHD format is the files can be mounted natively in Windows as virtual drives. You can easily view and even edit the contents of the backup image before writing it back to USB later on.

Download Rufus

3. USB Image Tool

USB Image Tool is a portable program that can create full images of USB memory sticks, MP3 players, and any other storage devices that are mounted as USB drives. The program has a drop down option to let you select between taking an image of the whole USB drive or just the first volume on the device. That's useful if your device has more than one partition although the boot sector will not get saved in Volume mode.

Select the USB drive, click Backup, and choose the file name and save folder. USB Image Tool backs up drives to an uncompressed IMG file by default. To compress an image file, click the 'Save as type' dropdown when asked where to save the file. There are options of saving as Zip compressed IMZ or GZip compressed IMG.GZ files. Compression might take a bit longer but could reduce the size of a large image file.

There's also a Favorites tab where you can keep backup locations stored for quick access. Some options are available such as creating an MD5 checksum with the backup file, showing non-removable devices, verifying the backup, and defining a naming structure for the backup files. The .NET Framework 4.7 is required for non Windows 10 users. A command line usbitcmd.exe is included for advanced usage, such as in scripts.

Download USB Image Tool

4. HDD Raw Copy Tool

Although the name might suggest this program is only meant to copy hard drives, it is also specifically designed to handle all types of media devices. USB flash drives, hard drives, and all types of flash based media and cards are supported. HDD Raw Copy Tool makes a complete sector by sector duplicate of the device irrespective of what partitions or operating systems are present.

On start, you are shown the Source window where you select the USB drive to copy. The next window is the Target window where you have to double click on the File option in the devices list and choose a save name and location. The default save option is a compressed IMGC file although you can select an uncompressed IMG format from the 'Save as type' drop down.

Click Continue and then Start to begin the backup. As the backup file will be compressed, it could be much smaller than uncompressed backup files that will be the size of the whole drive. Restoring a backup is a case of swapping things around and selecting the backup file in the Source window and the USB drive in the target window. An installer version is available but the portable version does the job perfectly fine.

Download HDD Raw Copy Tool

On page two we show you more portable image backup tools and also show how to compress backup files more efficiently.

Usb Flash Copy Full Version Windows 10

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My issue with all/most of these tools is that you have to have the same size or larger flash drive when you recreate the drive.

I'm going to look into the Easeus ToDo again.

Yes, their main purpose is to backup and restore onto the same drive, not different drives.

Hi, Thanks for this wonderful article. Rufus does it very well for me.

@Maxime: are you using backup or clone? Because clone asks for a drive as target (which I am not interested to), not creating an image, so I guess backup. As backup I see Disk or Partition backup seem to answer the question, but both ask to buy a license. AOMEI Backupper Standard, labelled as Free, but is it really free?

I've just installed AOMEI Backupper Standard and it doesn't ask to buy a license for a disk or partition backup. It's possible you may be trying to use a Pro feature somewhere while using the backup option. Not 100% sure of that, just a guess.

PassMark ImageUSB make ISO , why do you say it can be done it has only save as .bin NOT iso

Read the article again, it says you can create a bin file from usb or write a bin/iso onto USB. Where does it say you can create iso files?

You can delete .bin and write .iso manually. It will work.

I can delete any file extension and write in another file extension. Does that change the actual file?

Nope.

These tools are indeed very interesting. My specific need is to copy the folders and files on a USB flash memory stick, where one folder is specifically for 'shortcuts', i.e. hyperlinks to various folders, which works as a kind of table of contents. Everything else that I need to back up works using copy and paste, but not the hyperlinks, which link to the old drive and not the new drive. Is there a solution to this, other than imaging? I mean is there a solution that does not tie up so much empty disk space? If not, then I will work with the limitations of imaging.

I did not like any of these flash drive imaging utilities as they only save the complete flash drive image which I do not like as they all create a very large full drive image regardless how small data you have on your flash drive.
Let me explain, if I have a large 256 GB flash drive and I only have a 10 GB data on this drive, all of the above mentioned programs will save the full and complete 256 GB image instead of just the 10 GB data, a complete waste of unnecessary space as they create a very large backup image file.
Unfortunately the popular Macrium Reflect imaging program does not recognize flash drives so this program will not work.
Luckily, the latest Acronis True Image 2018 build 12510 will successfully backup only the 10 GB data image and this backup image file will be much smaller than taking the full (unnecessary) 256 GB flash drive like all the above listed programs do.
Acronis TI is not free but it is the only one I found to do exactly what I want and need.
If you do know of another program that will do exactly what Acronis TI can do and is FREE then please share it here with us all.
Thank you

Easeus ToDo Backup Free is free and can do the same: an image of the only>

Failed to backup linux SD card, not even when doing sector by secotr copy, still fails ( all other programs handle that). Lots of popups asking to buy all the time… feel like scam program.

Stay away I say.

Experienced users will also achieve a MUCH smaller image by first deleting large or excess files: (ALL of these will be regenerated upon next BOOT)
Pagefile.sys
c:windowsprefetch
c:windowstemp
Other TEMP folders
Other TEMPORARY folders
Useless .BAK; .TMP; .OLD files
OFFLINE WEB PAGES
SOFTWAREDISTRIBUTION
INSTALLER
OFFLINE WEB PAGES
SOFTWAREDISTRIBUTION

I know your comment is now 2 years old, but I hope my suggestion will be helpful to those finding this article –
Today (June 2020), AOMEI Backupper just does that on Windows, for free.

I succeeded in backuping a 32 GB flash disk into a 586 MB image, and another 32 GB flash disk to a 6.55 GB image.
The first flash disk was a Dell Restore & Recovery USB media, made with Dell Direct Key Creator (used to restore Dell machines to their factory state).
The second one was a standard Windows 10 Installation disk, made with Windows 10 Media Creation Tool.

Each time, I made the backup image, formatted the drive, and restored the image back to the same drive. Everything was OK, and all restored disks were both bootable and working.
I did not test any other schemas, such as restoring on a smaller or different drive.

The free (Standard) version of AOMEI Backupper is said to be slower than the paid version, but my 32 GB stick (USB 2.0) was backuped quite quickly, as well as my USB 3.0 32 GB stick (Patriot Memory Supersonic). The Patriot (containing the Windows 10 image) was backuped in 1 minute, and restored in two minutes.

On Linux, you could use the classic dd command with the conv=sparse option.

Flash drives have gotten so large and cheap that it is common to have a little 500 MB bootable image on a 32 GB flash drive. Since these tools make uncompressed image files, imaging such a flash drive can waste a LOT of space. So the obvious solution is to compress the image files.

What tool(s) would you recommend for that? Which tools happily work with such enormous files, and which are fast enough to not be overly painful to use?

One other thought: to make an image file which is maximally compressible, you should first zero-out the free-space on your flash drive, before making the image file. The easiest way to do that is with Mark Russinovich's SDelete tool.

Usb Flash Copy Full Version Download

For example, if your flash drive is F: then do this from an administrator-level command prompt:

sdelete64 -z f:

You can download SDelete (which includes both 32-bit and 64-bit versions) here:
docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sdelete

Great tip, thanks!
I've been looking for a way to make smaller images. I also suspect that the longer way(without the zeroing part) causes much more wear and tear on the flash drive's memory.

Dave,
Thanks for the info.

I know this is old but hopefully you are still tracking it. It is not working for me. I am probably missing something. I ran sdelete prior to PassMark ImageUSB as indicated, but still got an image file as big as the flash drive total size. This is the process I am using. Could you please help?
1- run sdelete on the flash drive
2- create image with PassMark ImageUSB

thanks,

sdelete is to make the compressed file smaller, you have to compress the image file with for example 7zip or WinRAR, the resulting file will be smaller than the file without running sdelete first because those clusters might be different from zero ( when you delete data you only delete the MBR entry but the data still remains so it's possible to recover as long as you don't add more data that can overwite it ).

Hi All, Thanks RAY for another wonderful article, System Image of USB drives was beyond my thinking ! I tried the robust option : USB Image Tool ( RMPrepUSB for future ) but it takes considerable time to image even a 8gb pendrive on a quite speedy system ! I would like to ask what will be the Best + Fast + Versatile way to image a single vs multiple partitioned USB drive ? In the meantime i would like to explore the installed Macrium Reflect Free for the purpose ! Thanks & Regards.

As always, we are accustomed to your good articles. Thank you.

Thank u very much. But as u said the image files are as big as the flash drives no matter how much data they contain. Is there any app that will create image files sizing according to the size of the contents in the flash drive?

Which one (if any) can copy a GPT partitionned USB key ?
I failed with ImageUSB.

I would think options 3 or 4 can do that as they copy the whole drive starting from sector 0.

Really useful as usual,
many thanks

marvelous ray!

Another great tool. Thanks!

Thanks Raymond.