usb flash drive not a valid backup location for system image

To add to concerns from John and Hal, I 'free upgraded' to Windows 10 long ago. It took ages to get used to it. I put my faith in their Backup and File History methodology and duely bought and outboard 1TB drive for that purpose. It seemed to be working and I dutifully carried this outboard disk around separately to ensure I could recover if I lost my PC for any reason. The other day my inboard disk gave up over night. Windows had shut down normally but next morning there was no boot strap or anything accessible on the inboard disk. I was forced to buy a new inboard disk and start again from scratch. Once I had managed to get Windows working again after 13 hours of downloading updates and as many Gb' s, and my Office product installed again, I tried to recover from my outboard disk. It contained dozens of File History files going back years by date. Each was only a few Gb but the total was over 600Gb. Guess what!!! No full backup of my data files or folders! Just the 'changed' files from the dates of each File History record. I have effectively lost my entire database of file and folder structures going back many years. It is a disaster. The MS Community have tried hard to come to my aid, but failed though trying many options to find any true backup. It is a disaster for me. Apparently File History is not reliable as a backup, and as has been shown, does not apparently backup your files first so as to make use of the File History records later. There is no way back for me.

BE WARNED. Do backup yourself by copying and pasting your data to an outboard disk or drag and drop etc. Windows 10 BACKUP AND FILE HISTORY IS A DISASTER. Back up your own files as soon as you can. This could easily happen to you..!!

Hal Hill, I would advise to stick to win7 all the rest that followed are just full of apps and ads.  I had a terrible event just recently, Windows 10 offered me a free UPGRADE, not update. I presumed this was like the 8 to 8.1.  Well to cut a long story short, it corrupted my files and left my pc in a repair loop which was unescapable. 

Microsofts own tech tried for a long time to sort out the problem and then told me I needed outside assistance because they would need to have my pc next to them. Well I was informed that the UPGRADE had damaged files, they tried to save my important files and bless them they succeeded. I would warn all, if you are going to backup (which I would STRONGLY RECOMMEND, then please check first if any of your files are damaged. To fully get my system back I had to buy another Win10 OS disc, maybe this what microsoft really wants!!

I have a 1TB Flash drive and it STILL says that this "location not suitable".

Your response is outdated.  Modern USB drive easily contain more than 100 GBytes which should be quite adequate to contain a system image of a personal computer.  Removable USB drives are much more convenient and easy to use than external hard drives. 

PS  I now use Windows 10; your comment was addressed to Windows 7 and 8.

nice work-around