USB recovery media: Motoring Computer Related forum

Computer Related > USB recovery media	Computing Issues
Thread Author: Slidingpillar	Replies: 9

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Wed 13 Jul 16 16:29

USB recovery media - Slidingpillar

Probably a silly question, but does anyone know if I can copy recovery media?

I've bought a new desktop PC, and I'm trudging through the process of setting it up to be moderately sensible and saying "no" to the Microsoft Nanny. Just spent over an hour making a memory stick recovery media but although there was plenty of space, a 64G stick is resolutely telling me it's only 32G. So only half is being seen.

Said stick is also saying it's 32G on another computer, and the socket I used has a 64G memory stick now plugged in and all 64G is being read. So I think that rules out the PC as being faulty (good) and the memory stick is, I guess dying.

Hardly expensive, but as I might want other stuff, I don't want to dash an order off to Amazon (or whoever) as given my luck, I'll think of something else it needs shortly.

But, can I just copy the old stick onto the new one, or do I have to make it afresh on every stick? Because it won't take anywhere near as long to do that.

On another matter, cudos for McAfee. Hit problem with installing Livesafe (it's an antivirus program, subscription with PC). Entered Live chat at 2210, two minutes later I was chatting to an operator in the USA (I think as her time was 1612). I let her take remote control of PC and all sorted inside ten minutes. I think she would have preferred to phone me, but since I'm deaf, not possible.

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Wed 13 Jul 16 17:04

USB recovery media - smokie

You probably have the format set to FAT32 when NTFS is needed for support over 32Gb (IIRC!!)

If the recovery stick is bootable then simply using Windows copy'n' paste won't do the biz, if I'm understanding you correctly.

How are you making the recovery stick

Last edited by: smokie on Wed 13 Jul 16 at 17:04

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Wed 13 Jul 16 17:06

USB recovery media - smokie

On second thoughts that might be utter rubbish but have a look anyway...

Still curious about your recovery disk method.

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Wed 13 Jul 16 17:19

USB recovery media - Slidingpillar

How are you making the recovery stick

Control Panel/System/Create a recovery drive. It is using FAT32, so I'll check its friend at tonight (I've two nominally identical sticks). So if that is the reason, I've just been kyboshed by the system, and don't really have anything to worry about.

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Wed 13 Jul 16 17:23

USB recovery media - rtj70

How technical are you with PCs? I'd personally use a bootable Linux based disk clone solution to backup the drive as is. It can then be restored easily as a full disk image.

For this I'd use CloneZilla. But it's aimed at the more technical person with a text based GUI.

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Wed 13 Jul 16 18:22

USB recovery media - Slidingpillar

Some bits of PCs have left me behind over the years, but a quick look at Clonezilla suggests I could cope with it.

However, it would be the solution for a finished machine, not one in its early days with lots of "free" stuff to get rid of, and things to put on it.

Given, touch wood, I'm unlikely to need it, and for whatever reason the stick is showing half memory, I think I'll buy another stick, but I'll wait and see if I need any other bits and bobs first. I might yet need a longer HDMI lead for the monitor for one. The present one should do for now, but as it may be tight, a longer one may be sensible long term.

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Wed 13 Jul 16 18:32

USB recovery media - tyrednemotional

AFAIK, though FAT32 will support more than 32GB, (and, ISTR, Windows will recognise it) a Windows m/c will not format FAT32 at more than 32GB. So, it may simply be a matter of where it has been formatted.

I'm not sure to what state you are looking to recover, but it is relatively easy (if you have your key) to download Windows install software from Microsoft (and Win10 will install without a key on a m/c that has already had an install).

www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/home

A user-friendly (and free) piece of software is Aomei Backupper, which has the ability to backup at all sorts of levels, including a clone. I use it for backup on my machines now that the software supplied with my NAS no longer works on newer Windows versions. I haven't used it to clone, but I have used their (free) partition assistant to easily resolve major problems on a friend's machine.

www.aomeitech.com/

Last edited by: tyrednemotional on Wed 13 Jul 16 at 18:33

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Wed 13 Jul 16 19:04

USB recovery media - rtj70

A belts and braces backup I can check works for me. For my important data I backup daily the folders that matter to Google using Arq. I used to use Amazon Web Services - and those backups are still there as 'backup' and cost me about 60p a month.

Reminds me.... I have a drive to use for backups of my Mac. It was used on the iMac and so when I swapped to a Mac Mini I stored it. Time to have it auto-backup the newer Mac. The iMac is in 'storage'.

Last edited by: rtj70 on Wed 13 Jul 16 at 19:05

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Wed 13 Jul 16 21:02

USB recovery media - smokie

Macrium Reflect for me, for imaging disks - and you can mount a disk to recover specific files if you don't want to recover the whole lot. Windows based and you can image your other drives while the system is up and running, only when imaging/restoring the C drive do you need to boot from the bootable media. You can image directly to another disk or to removable media.

Funnily enough I've been using it a lot today, restoring old images of my C drive, as I have the circles problem in browsing which NOFM2R mentioned and another issue, and I'm wondering if I have a backup which doesn't have the problems (it seems I do!!)

Genuinely free, and you can do incremental backups too!

www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

Try the following for your USB

1. Open a command prompt (Admin) from right click on Start button
2. Type diskpart, press enter
3. Type list disk and note the disk number tof your USB drive (you should be able to tell from the size)
4. type select disk X (where X is the number from step 3)
5. Type clean
6. Type create partition primary
7. Type exit to exit DISKPART

Then try to format it again but in DOS. So still in the command prompt, format it with the command

format /fs:FAT32 x: (where x is your USB drive letter)

I reckon that might work.

It could take some time, and it may still not work. I'm thinking you may bneed to re-partition before you can do it.

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Thu 14 Jul 16 15:47

USB recovery media - Slidingpillar

Largely irrelevant now, but I did promise to give the file system for the USB stick that is ok. It's FATS32, and yes, it is showing all its 64G iness. Although strange things happened on a file copy, but I'll revisit that another day.

First post with new PC too

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