In this article, we will tell you how to create an image from a USB flash drive! This is necessary later if you have lost the original image, and the distribution kit remained only on flash drives.

Do you have an installation distribution kit with an operating system (Windows, Linux, macOS) on a USB flash drive and you need to remove it and create an image from it? There is no problem in this! In this article, we will tell you how to do it with the help of several programs absolutely free!

iso?

It is impossible to create an ISO file from a bootable flash drive, so if you write it back to a flash drive, then it (the flash drive) will not be bootable! Instead of ISO, they create IMG, BIN, IMA images, which are an exact byte-by-byte copy of a bootable USB flash drive.

When creating an image from a bootable USB flash drive, its entire volume is copied! THAT IS if the flash drive is 16 GB, then the image will be 16 Gb in size, even if 2 GB was recorded on the drive

Create an image from a USB flash drive using UltraISO

Probably many have heard about the UltraISO program, which allows you to burn an existing image to a flash drive or to a CD, DVD disc. It turns out that this program also allows you to do the opposite - to remove an image with the recorded data from a USB flash drive (bootable USB flash drive)!

Create an image in UltraISO

To do this, you must perform the following steps:

Everything is ready!

Write the image to a new flash drive

Create an image from a USB flash drive using the USB Image Tool

Unlike UltraISO, the USB Image Tool is free, not a trial! It has an intuitive interface and perfectly creates images from a USB flash drive, and writes it down!

Creating an image in the USB Image Tool

Burn the image using the USB Image Tool to a new flash drive

Create an image from a USB flash drive using ImageUSB PassMark

A simple ImageUSB PassMark utility that creates and writes BIN images without the need for installation on a computer.

Creating an image from a bootable USB flash drive using ImageUSB PassMark

Write the image using ImageUSB PassMark to a new flash drive

Do you still have questions? Write them in the comments, tell us what you did or vice versa!

Hello, friends! Today we will talk again about creating a bootable USB flash drive.

How to create a bootable USB device? For what purpose should it be used and with what program to write it down?

A brief overview of the five most popular and free programs for creating a bootable USB flash drive.

Modern developments do not stand still, and yesterday's technologies are slowly but surely losing their relevance. So the once popular CDs and DVDs no longer seem to be such an unambiguous solution for storing, transferring information and working with it. High data reading speed, versatility and reusability are only a small part of all the advantages of a flash drive as a bootable medium over disks. Already today, almost all personal computers and laptops, if they are not more than ten years old, support the ability to boot from USB devices. And in some cases (for example, a netbook), a flash drive may be the only boot device from an external drive.

By the way, the new Windows 10 operating system will be the first axis, the distribution of which will be officially distributed on a USB drive. And if you suddenly need to recover files from a flash drive, read about it. I also recommend paying attention to, which will help you escape from everyday work and cheer you up.

With the help of additional software, a USB flash drive can be used not only as a boot device for installing, reinstalling and restoring the operating system, but also for creating an emergency device (Multiboot). This is a kind of resuscitator, a tool from which you can boot at any time and cure your computer of viruses, restore system files or save important data. How to create such a flash drive, I described in the article "Creating a bootable Live CD / DVD / USB device and its use." You can familiarize yourself with this article.

Despite all the obvious advantages and the growing popularity of a flash drive as a boot device, there are not so many programs for creating it. Nevertheless, they are, and today I will introduce you to them in more detail, but first a few words about the preparatory stage.

Preparing a flash drive

We need the flash drive itself, plus knowledge of some important aspects. First you need to make sure that the computer supports booting from USB devices. There is an erroneous opinion that if the bios (boot section) does not have the ability to select boot from usb (there are only floppi, hdd and dvd-rom options), then booting from usb is not supported. This is not true!

More precisely, it is not always so. The only correct solution is to refer to the manual (user manual) of your motherboard or use specialized software (as an option - AIDA64) to get a detailed report on the hardware used.

The second point is the size of the flash drive. Here everything will depend on what we write on it. For example, to create a Live-USB, a Linux or Windows 7 installation disk, a 4 GB flash drive is enough. To create a bootable device with the latest versions of Windows, it is advisable to have at least an 8 GB flash drive on hand.

The third point is the transfer of files from a USB flash drive. As a rule, the process of creating a bootable device involves its complete formatting. If there are important files on the flash drive, transfer them to another device in advance. To create a bootable flash drive and then work with it as a bootable device, use the USB-2.0 port (Windows 7 does not support USB 3.0).

How to create a bootable flash drive

Let's look at five different ways using five free programs for Windows as an example.

A small but quite functional utility with a telling name WinSetupFromUSB. Equally well suited for burning a bootable and / or multi-boot flash drive (up to 10 operating systems) and creating Live devices. Official site .

Of the shortcomings - the lack of support for the Russian language. Among the advantages, as I said, is its versatility. The utility can work not only with the Windows distribution, but is also suitable for burning a Linux installation disk.

The usual option for creating a bootable USB flash drive, for example, with a Windows distribution kit, provides for the selection in the appropriate columns of the flash drive itself, the option to automatically format the media and the ISO image of the operating system. The recording process starts after pressing the "Go" button. You can read more about the work of this program.

To create a multi-boot flash drive (several operating systems), you need to specify the path to the ISO images of operating systems. The Windows 10 selection item is not available by default at the time of this writing, but in reality everything is written and works, you just need to select the appropriate column with the available versions - Vista, 7, 8.

2. Rufus

Perhaps the easiest solution to create bootable USB drives. Everything is simple and intuitive. Suitable for work on systems that do not have an installed OS. Official site rufus.akeo.ie.

Of the main advantages - speed, simple interface, Russian language. An excellent solution if there is a need to create a bootable Windows 10 USB flash drive with UEFI support. By the way, I wrote in detail about how to do this in.

It is distributed in the format of a regular installer and a portable version. To create a bootable flash drive in the utility window, you must specify the path to the ISO image to be burned and click the "Start" button.

On new systems that use UEFI instead of BIOS, set the Partition Scheme and System Interface Type menu to GPT for UEFI Machines.
Otherwise, the default settings will suffice. The option to format the flash drive is assigned by default.

3. Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

This utility is an official application from Microsoft. The interface is minimalistic, simple and clear, it is easy to work with it. Downloading from the official site wudt.codeplex.com.

Perhaps the name of the utility (Windows 7 USB) will mislead many that it can only be used to write the Windows 7 distribution to removable media. However, this is not the case. In addition to the seventh version, Windows 8.1 and 10 distributions can be written to a USB flash drive.

Of the minuses - the utility is not Russified, however, a simple and intuitive interface is designed to level this drawback.

All that is required from the user is to insert a USB drive in advance, select the ISO image with the operating system and specify the path to the media (flash drive) to which this image should be deployed.

The principle of operation of this program is based on the standard tools of the Windows operating system - these are "diskpart", "bootsect / nt60", unpacking ISO to a USB flash drive. The program acts only as a graphical interface.

UltraISO is one of the best and most functional disc imaging programs. A universal "combine" that supports almost any known format. Able to work in tandem with Nero Burning Rom and integrates with virtual emulators. It will help if the boot disk image is not in ISO format.

The program can convert other image formats into ISO files - NRG, MDF, MDS, IMG, CCD, etc. With UltraISO you can edit ISO files without unpacking them. The UltraISO interface has been translated into many languages, including Russian. For downloading, you are offered a choice of several editions of UltraISO, adapted for individual versions of Windows, as well as a portable version of the program. Download link www.ezbsystems.com.

By and large, the program does not care what boot devices will be created with its help, with what operating system, what software and from what manufacturer. The writable ISO image must be opened in the program window, either using the "Open" command in the "File" menu, or using the browse button on the toolbar. You can also do this with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + O.

Then, in the window that appears, if the program automatically selects the desired flash drive, you should click the "Burn" button.

Daemon Tools Ultra is a professional imaging tool. The program itself is familiar to many users from the free Lite version, which allows you to mount virtual drives to read disk images. Its more functional version - Daemon Tools Ultra - among other features offers the creation of bootable devices.

Among the shortcomings, it is worth noting that it is paid, but to create a bootable USB flash drive on the official website of the program, you can download a free trial 20-day version. Official website of the program.

We go to the official website and download the program. During installation (installation), you need to select a trial license type.

The program works with a huge number of disk image formats and can be used both to create a bootable device with subsequent installation of the operating system, and to restore it (Live-disk).

To create a bootable flash drive in the main window of Daemon Tools Ultra, select the "Tools" menu item, and among its commands - "Burn boot image to USB". Or the hotkey combination Ctrl+B.

In the recording options window, specify the path to the image, make the MBR overwrite option active and click "Start".

When the flash drive is ready, it remains only to boot from it. The easiest way is to use the boot menu keys. The table below shows an illustrative example of such keys.

Of course, this is not the whole list of programs designed to create bootable devices, however, for the vast majority of users, the capabilities and functionality of the listed software will be enough.

For example, the Rufus program can be used as the easiest and fastest tool to create a bootable USB disk with one Windows distribution or to flash the BIOS from under DOS.

Sometimes, users think about creating an image from a flash drive, especially a bootable one. This may be necessary in many cases, but the most common is the transfer of all data from one drive to another.

Creating an image is not so difficult, however, in most cases it will not be an iso format, although this is not entirely correct. This happens because iso was created for disc copying, despite the fact that the format itself can be written to any drive. However, it is still possible to write a flash drive to iso, and this article will present several ways to do this.

Using UltraISO to Create an Image

This application is very popular among Russian users. It has a clear and accessible interface, allows you to create and record images. There are several ways to do this.

In the first case, you will need to click on the drive itself and drag it on the part of the window that is responsible for the list of files in the program.

In the next window you will agree to transfer data. In the menu item, you need to click on the item responsible for extracting boot data from the disk and saving it to your device. Then, in the same menu item, select " Upload download file". After that, you can go to File - Save As. Here you can select the iso format and save all data. This completes the copy creation. However, it is possible do.ima file, which will be better, because this format is designed to work with drives.

Make it much easier. You just need to click on the marked item and select the drive from which byte-by-byte copying will be performed. In this case, the carrier will copied in full, even empty data. That is, if there is only one on a flash drive with 4 GB of data, the image will still take four.

Using the USB Image Tool

Creating a copy with this application does not take much time. You need to download and install it. After launch, the user sees all drives on the left side of the screen. You have to choose the right one and pressbackup. This will get the img file, which contains all the data from the drive.

To record the created image, you can use the same utility. Just press the left button. However, this is more of a data backup. It is impossible to write the received file to another drive, only back to the same one.

PassMark ImageUSB app to create a full copy

This program does not even require the user to install it on a computer. She only needs download and run.

After starting, all you need to do is select media, which will be copied. In the second step, you should choose the same as in the picture. In the third paragraph, you need to specify the directory in which the final file will be saved. Then it remains to press Create and wait for the process to finish. To write a file, you need to select the first item in the second step.

ImgBurn Utility

This program will allow you to create an image from a disk or from a folder. To get started, you need to select the item indicated in the image.

After that, in the next window you will need to specify the flash drive as a source. To do this, you can click on the marked icon.

You will also need to go to tabAdvanced on the right side of the screen and set the same settings as in the image. This will turn the created image into a bootable one. If this is not necessary, then this paragraph can be skipped.

As you can see from the article, create an image from the drive is not so difficult if it's just a file. If you need to make a boot image, then you should use specialized utilities.

E If a USB drive is already connected or several are connected, then select the one you need. If you connected the flash drive after starting the program, then click "Scan again". D To backup and create an image of the USB drive of your choice, click on "Backup".

AT select a location to save the backup, enter a file name and select the required type from the possible ones: img, ima, with ZIP compression - imz, GZIP compression - img.gz. Then click "Save"

And the backup process is fast and depends only on the speed of work and the volume of the drive. The process takes place in a sector-by-sector mode, so all information from the drive will be saved. You can also abort the process at this point by clicking Cancel.
AT restoring information on the media from an image created earlier or downloaded on the Internet is also simple: click on "Restore", select the image and confirm the selected action.

With link for download
I hope the article will be useful to many. In my case, this program turned out to be a simple and quick solution to creating a bootable USB-Flash image.

P The program works very fast and now I do not need to constantly have a bootable flash. I can use it for any purpose, and if necessary, restore from an image in a matter of minutes. On my computer, which is not very new and fast at work, the process of creating a bootable USB-Flash image takes up to seven minutes, this is for 8 Gb. I don't think it's bad at all. Thanks to the author of the utility.

To create a bootable flash drive, we will use programs from both a third-party manufacturer and the built-in Windows command interpreter. Each method is different and has its own specifics, but I think that a simple end user will be able to cope with creating a bootable USB flash drive using any of the proposed methods:

• how to make bootable usb flash drive using command line
• how to make a bootable flash drive using ultraiso
• how to make a bootable flash drive using Windows7 USB/DVD Download Tool

If you are interested in information about creating a bootable USB flash drive for the Linux family of operating systems, then you can read the information at this link "bootable USB flash drive for Linux".

So, I propose to start creating a bootable USB flash drive in order, as defined in the above list, respectively, proceed to the first method.

BOOT USB flash drive using the command line (I method)

Further, we will use only those commands that we need to create a bootable USB flash drive. Therefore, the figure below shows the sequential input of commands to create a bootable USB flash drive. And please pay attention to the fact that the commands you enter are marked with a red underline!

Graphical representation of typing commands on the command line

Now let's describe the previously entered commands:

DISKPART- run the program, a text-mode command interpreter that allows you to manage objects (disks, partitions or volumes) using scripts or direct commands from the command line.

list disk- display a list of disk drives connected to a personal computer.

select disk 1- select the disk numbered "1", since in our case it is a removable flash drive.

clean- clears all data from removable media - flash drives.

create partition primary- create a primary partition.

select partition 1- select the created section.

active- make the section active.

format fs=NTFS- format the flash drive in the NTFS file system.

assign letter=T- if necessary, in this way you can assign a letter to the flash drive.

exit- exit from the DISKPART program.

BOOT DRIVE IS CREATED!

NOTE: After you have created a bootable USB flash drive, you need to transfer the operating system files to this removable media. The files must be transferred unpacked, in no case do not just add an image of the operating system, for example, one * .ISO file, this WILL NOT WORK!!!

You can see the full list of Diskpart commands in the following table:

Command table of the program "DISKPART"

BOOT USB flash drive using the UltraISO program (method II)

The UltraISO program is designed to create and edit disk images. When creating a bootable flash drive, we will use the built-in functions of this program.

Open the program with administrator rights, as shown in the figure:

We select the necessary operating system image to create a bootable USB flash drive, for example, the Windows Vista disk image is selected here:

A pop-up window appears where you need to make sure that the removable media, the file of the image to be written and the recording method are correctly specified (it must be set in USB-HDD + mode) and click the "burn" button

After pressing the "Write" button, a "Hint" window will appear, which will prompt you to erase all information on the flash drive. Agree!

Then the data will be written to the flash drive...

And finally, after a certain time, the image of the operating system will be written to the newly created bootable flash drive for future installation.

BOOT DRIVE DONE!

NOTE: Do not forget to set the BIOS input / output system to boot the primary device, that is, make the computer boot from removable media - the bootable USB flash drive you created.

BOOT DRIVE with Windows7 USB/DVD Download Tool (III method)

The Windows7 USB/DVD Download Tool was created by Microsoft to burn operating system disk images to optical and removable media. When creating a bootable flash drive, we will consistently follow all the instructions of the program.

First you need to download this program from the official Microsoft website. Then you need to install the program following the instructions of the installer. After installing the program, a shortcut will appear on the desktop, as shown in the figure:

Run it with "Administrator rights", right-click on the shortcut and click on the "Run as administrator" line. The program will start, click the "Browse" button and select the *.ISO operating system image

After you have selected the image of the system to be written, click "Next", another window will appear where you will be prompted to select the type of media - optical or removable. Since we have removable media - a flash drive, select "USB device"

We select our removable media from the proposed list, i.e. flash drive and press the "Begin copying" button

After pressing the above button, the process of formatting the flash drive will begin ...

After a while, the process of writing disk image data to the USB flash drive will continue.

We wait for some time until the image is written, and in the end we will get 100%, and now bootable flash drive is formed!

NOTE: Do not forget to set the BIOS input / output system to boot the primary device, that is, make the computer boot from removable media - the bootable USB flash drive you created.