Rescue USB

Windows 10 home 2004.
If I make a Macrium Rescue USB, does it have to be the only thing on that USB drive?
Or can I put additional Macrium backups on it too?
Thanks, cb

abredt said:

... can I put additional Macrium backups on it too?

Yes, you can. The Macrium recovery boot files occupy less than 1GB (making it an ideal use for old small USBs).

I do that for a little netbook that's my 'take anywhere' machine. I've made the Macrium rescue USB on a 16GB stick, then saved a Macrium image to it so that I can restore an image while on the move. Note that as the USB is Fat32 format Macrium by default will automatically create a set of multiple image files, each less than the 4GB Fat32 file size limit.




However, a USB memory stick is not as robust as an external HDD and can die unexpectedly, so I wouldn't rely on it as the only place to keep your images. I also put an image on an HDD.

I've always been partial to the ISO rescue media. As a long time user of RUFUS/YUMI I can just copy any bootable ISO to my flash drive. If you have a PC with BIOS it's easy to create a multi-boot USB rescue flash drive.



There is also a way to create multi-boot UEFI flash drives but I haven't played with it yet. Anybody else ever try multi-boot UEFI?

jadinolf said:

This has been my favorite backup rescue method but I see no mention of it. Anyone else use it?

Yes, I add the Boot Menu option to all my PCs when I install Macrium. It is by far the quickest way to boot to Macrium recovery, and is required if you right-click on an image file and select Restore (if its not there, Macrium will build it before rebooting to do the restore).

However, it relies on the drive not being so corrupt that you can't boot from it. A recovery USB should also be made, just in case.