Best Portable Tool to Create USB Image in Windows 10/8/7

Why need portable USB image tool?

To avoid unexpected data loss or system errors, you can create an image of Windows 10/8/7 to USB external drive or flash drive. Thus when problem occurs, you can easily recover your files or OS with this portable device.

However, it should be noted that USB is not always safe either. Sometimes you may also need to image USB drive to Windows PC or other devices as a backup.

Here in this article, I will introduce a portable tool to fulfill both aspects: it can create Windows image to USB for recovery needs (or even create bootable USB), and create USB image to other storages. Meanwhile, you can put this tool in a removable device and use it on any Windows PC without installation.

• Best USB image tool for portable use
• How to create a portable version of AOMEI Backupper?
• How to create USB image with this portable tool?
• How to create a bootable USB with this portable tool?

Best USB image tool for portable use

AOMEI Backupper is a powerful backup & restore program working on all Windows OS. It comes with the ability to image files, partitions, operating system, internal/external hard disk, USB flash drive, etc. and all the operation can be done within several simple clicks.

Normally you can only use these features after installing the tool on a Windows machine, but with Technician or Technician Plus edition, you can create a portable version on removable device and use it on target computers without installation.

What else can you enjoy in this portable version:
✿ Backup: Schedule backup, incremental or differential backup, backup scheme (auto delete old backups), etc.
✿ Clone: Partition clone, disk clone, system clone.
✿ Sync: Basic sync, real-time sync, mirror sync, two-way sync.
✿ Tools: Create bootable USB, disk wipe, PXE boot tool, Image deploy, etc.

Download the USB image tool to have a try:

* AOMEI Backupper Technician has the same functions as Technician Plus, but it does not support Windows Servers.

How to create a portable version of AOMEI Backupper?

After downloading the USB image tool on a Windows machine, you can install it and create a portable version with one of its built-in tools.

1. Launch the software, navigate to Tools tab and select Create Portable Version.

2. If you’ve connected a removable device to the PC, it will be selected as the target location by default. If not, you can click Browse to specify a destination.

Currently, portable version doesn’t support network path or CD-ROM drive as the target location.

3. Click Start Creating to create the portable tool. The installation directory and registration tool will be copied to the target path, then you can click Finish.

When it’s done, you’ve got a portable USB image tool. Insert the removable device to any target computer, and double-click Backupper.exe to run AOMEI Backupper without installation.

Notes:

◉ If AOMEI Backupper has been installed on the target computer before, then the portable version may run into problems. Thus you can use Register.exe in the portable directory to Register for the advanced edition correctly.

◉ Please don’t run portable version with AOMEI Backupper simultaneously.

How to create USB image with this portable tool?

1. Connect the portable version to a target computer, and insert the USB drive you want to image.
2. Open AOMEI Backupper, go to Backup tab and select Disk Backup to image an USB external drive or flash drive.

If you want to create a Windows image to USB drive, you can select System Backup instead.

3. Select the connected USB drive as the source, and specify a destination. Internal/external hard drive, flash drive, NAS, network share and cloud are all supported.

4. Click Start Backup to execute the task.

◑ Schedule: Set up auto backup daily, weekly, monthly, event triggers (startup, shutdown, etc.) or USB plug in.
◑ Scheme: Auto delete backups older than x days to save storage space.
◑ Options: Comments, email notification, encryption, image compression and splitting, etc.

How to create a bootable USB with this portable tool?

If you are concerned that your computer may not boot due to system errors, this portable USB image tool also supports you to create bootable USB. Thus when problem occurs, you can insert the USB to the crashed computer and recover it with a previously created system image.

1. Run AOMEI Backupper, then go to Tools tab and choose Create Bootable Media.

2. Choose Windows PE (recommended), the created disc will support both legacy BIOS and UEFI. Click Next to continue.

3. Select the bootable media. You can choose CD/DVD, USB or export the ISO file. Click Next to start creating it.

Then, you can insert the bootable USB into the problematic PC > press the specific key to enter BIOS > set the USB as the first boot option > boot in to WinPE > choose Restore and select the previously created system image to perform system restore.

With the dissimilar hardware restore feature, you can even restore a system image created on different computer.

Conclusion

Whether you want to create a system image to USB, make a bootable USB or back up USB image to other devices, you can use this USB image tool for portable use.

Not only backup and restore, AOMEI Backupper includes a lot of useful features that you may need. For instance, you can use it to transfer data and even migrate Windows 10 to smaller SSD while replacing the hard drive. If you have several PCs to boot, you can also use AOMEI Image Deploy tool to deploy system image to multiple computers over network.