1
1
I've used the "Recovery Disk" function in Windows 8.1 to create a bootable USB drive with the factory defaults for a laptop. Now I plan to wipe the laptop and install Ubuntu on it.
I'm not comfortable with having a USB drive as my only backup for the factory image (the reliability of these drives is legendary \s). So a more reliable backup is in order.
Is there a way to make Windows Recovery write directly to a mounted image file instead of a USB drive? Alternatively, can I create a bootable image file from the USB drive, including all the boot info and the data? This might be something like dd
, but in Windows for a UEFI-enabled bootable drive.
The end goal is to maintain the image file in safe backup and write it to an actual USB drive only if/when required for a factory reset.
I've tried looking at a few articles, such as this, but they go off on tangents without addressing the issue I'm facing (or similar). This question and this one are similar, but not quite the same.
There are some tools in Linux that will do this for a Linux installation on a flash drive, although I have not yet had that joy. I don't know if one of those would work on a Windows flash drive, particularly 8.x (the idea being that you boot up into Linux with a LiveDVD and use the tool from there). You would download and burn the Linux iso, and booting from it wouldn't affect anything on your system. I'll just throw this concept out there as a possibility in case it triggers a thought for someone with more knowledge. – fixer1234 – 2014-12-22T06:18:21.613
@fixer1234 The laptop doesn't even have an optical drive. I might be able to use a live USB I guess. – metacubed – 2014-12-22T06:36:40.623
If something like this would work, you will probably need two USB ports (you wouldn't be able to unplug the live session drive to plug in the Windows drive). A USB hub would do it if you don't have two free USB ports. – fixer1234 – 2014-12-22T06:40:17.913
@fixer1234 I'd rather go for a Windows-based solution though, saving steps if it makes sense. – metacubed – 2014-12-22T08:52:54.143