recovery disc?

**flight567** · 02-27-2012, 05:11 PM

good evening ladies and gentlemen, i've got a problem. i don't know how to create a recovery disc on a flash drive. i can create a .ISO and send that to the flash drive, but isn't it better to use the recovery disc utility instead of using a plain .ISO? (also!, does win 7 use a .ISO or a .IMG?) which is truly better and why?

**Edcculus** · 02-27-2012, 05:24 PM

I guess it depends on what you are trying to do. First, make sure your computer will boot from a flash drive. Some wont, others you need to enable it in the BIOS. If you are on Windows, hit F12 or F11 (I forget wich one) before Windows boots to see what you can boot from. I keep a bootable Billix Key with me at home and work for recovery purposes on the Windows machines I work on.

I don't work on a lot of Windows machines anymore (mostly Linux and OS X at this point), but I don't remember if you can boot from a straight ISO on a Windows machine. I could be wrong though...

There are drive cloning tools, which are pretty handy. Not sure if thats specifically what you are trying to do. This is something you will usually do to a DVD or an external hard drive. Not sure about Windows, but on Mac, I use Carbon Copy Cloner to create a bootable disc clone on a hard drive.

**flight567** · 02-27-2012, 05:39 PM

yea. i'm doing this for a friend. he bought two new laptops, and he wants a recovery disc of some sort and didn't want to pay the $100 at geek squad.
but i've never done a recovery disc on a flashdrive it's always been on a DVD... I prefer linux (i'm a mint guy) to windows personally, but for business windows wins. so i need to figure out what to do lol. thanks for the quick reply.

**Edcculus** · 02-27-2012, 06:30 PM

You know whats funny? When I google something like "bootable usb recovery windows", mostly bootbable linux stuff comes up!

**flight567** · 02-27-2012, 06:51 PM

i'd noticed ;) it i've decided to go through diskpart and then just put a bootable .ISO on the flash drive. now only one left lol
do you know if i need to extract it using win rar? or can i just copy and paste the .ISO?

**Chris_Ryan** · 02-27-2012, 07:42 PM

Why can't you just drop a DVD in the machine and burn them? Is it one of the netbook / ultra books that doesn't have an optical drive? I used to work at geek squad ~ 3 or 4 years ago, I don't remember you being able to create the recovery ISOs, only burn discs, but things could have changed in 4 years. :shrug:

An ISO on a USB drive will not work as your system can not properly recognize it. You can create the ISOs and copy the flat files over to the USB though - Google "Virtual Clone Drive" it is a program that will allow you to mount an ISO as if it is a loaded disc so you can copy the files over to a USB drive.

As to IMG vs ISO, they are different formats, in my experience ISOs are more common.

Sorry if this is semi incoherent, I have had a head cold for a few days and I have the disconnected medicine head going on.

**flight567** · 02-27-2012, 07:45 PM

that's fine. thank you. yes i had been wondering about that, i'd tried to boot from a .ISO linux mint to recover a friends virus ridden computer and it was a no go.

no they are both asus 17 inch core i7 monsters. but the person wanted me to use a flash drive. so that's what i'm going to do.i've had it do it's "create an image" thing and i wound up with a friggen .VHD........ now i'm really confused because it said image... i'm i missing something?

**Chris_Ryan** · 02-27-2012, 08:12 PM

HAHA - I think I bought the 14" version of it literally yesterday :)

Anyways, get some DVDs... Not sure how many, it used to be 1 - 3 depending on the manufacturer. Click start and then launch "AI Recovery Burner" and follow the directions.

Holy S*** - Mine just told me it estimated 6 DVDs... That is > 24 GB of data!

EDIT: I was going to tell you just to copy the data onto a USB Drive, but at 24GB, just burn the discs and tell your buddy to toss them in a draw.