usb flash drive not a valid backup location for system image

Here's your steps:

Put your USB device in the port, make sure that it is formatted with NTFS, (use disk manager in 'Computer Management' to accomplish this...)

Place a folder on your USB drive (It's probably the 'E:' drive after formatting it... just be sure you're using the right one).

Right-Click the folder and choose 'Share With...'

Select 'Everyone' and make sure 'Read/Write' will be the permissions.  

Click the 'Share' button and close all your windows, then....

Use the File History Applet/Utility from the Start Screen to open up the 'File History' control panel.  In the start screen, type "File History" and choose 'File History' not 'File History Settings'.

[  Note: Don't use File History from the standard Control Panel, it's not the same.]

At the very bottom-left  of that page, you will see, 'System Image Backup' (Click on that)  

Choose to backup "On a Network Location"  - (the bottom of three radio buttons in the window).

Then click on 'Select'

In the new window, click on 'Browse' to locate the folder you shared, and select it.

Place the account credentials in the field for an 'Administrative' account, then click 'OK'

This works exactly 100% of the time!

At your service...

Brion Bell

Dear Brion,

SETTING THE SCENE:

My hard drive physically breaks (e.g mechanical failure - outside of warranty), and I have to buy a brand new one from a local retailer and swap out the broken one for this new one.

Question:

If I had used your method as above, to successfully make a system image to a usb flash drive (literally just before the mechanical failure), would I be able to use it for a restore - so I am back to where I was, before the harddrive broke?

I think this is what most of us are hoping to be able to achieve with our system image to usb attempts.

Please explain the process, of restoring the image successfully to the new blank harddisk drive.

I guess many here just want to find a relatively straight forward way to do this natively within windows vs using some third party software instead

Kojac.

tried this but MBR shows message as volume is not convertible. ( I am using a 128gb usb flash drive) its error message is for DVD, CDROM, etc. Tried using the Create Partition Primary and got a message saying something along the lines of not enough space on partition. (128gb of space 85gb used 43gb unused) how is there not enough space? did I do this whole thing wrong?

I did not even bother trying step 3 without understanding why step 1 did not work.

I thought about doing this but dismissed it thinking the system would know I'm still trying to backup to a USB flash drive.  I was wrong....this worked like a charm.

Thanks

Thanks for the suggestion but I have given up on USB sticks, network drives etc., and have reverted to good old DVD. My whole system image fitted on just five DVDs. "Job done", as they say.

Here's your steps:

Put your USB device in the port, make sure that it is formatted with NTFS, (use disk manager in 'Computer Management' to accomplish this...)

Place a folder on your USB drive (It's probably the 'E:' drive after formatting it... just be sure you're using the right one).

Right-Click the folder and choose 'Share With...'

Select 'Everyone' and make sure 'Read/Write' will be the permissions.  

Click the 'Share' button and close all your windows, then....

Use the File History Applet/Utility from the Start Screen to open up the 'File History' control panel.  In the start screen, type "File History" and choose 'File History' not 'File History Settings'.

[  Note: Don't use File History from the standard Control Panel, it's not the same.]

At the very bottom-left  of that page, you will see, 'System Image Backup' (Click on that)  

Choose to backup "On a Network Location"  - (the bottom of three radio buttons in the window).

Then click on 'Select'

In the new window, click on 'Browse' to locate the folder you shared, and select it.

Place the account credentials in the field for an 'Administrative' account, then click 'OK'

This works exactly 100% of the time!

At your service...

Brion Bell