I'd like a clear understanding why.................

Why the system will not accept a NTFS formatted 32GB USB drive for system image back up ?
Why must I use an external hard drive ?

I AM using a 1TB ext. hdd for backups.
I just want to know why not USB flash drive.

No, I just inserted the USB > right click at it > click Format > select NTFS

Hi there

Possibly 3 reasons always assuming that the 32GB is large enough for the image to fit on.

1) image backup --is this trying to make a BOOTABLE backup on an MBR system -- then GPT drive won't be bootable.
2) using the stupid internal imaging system of Windows it activates VSS - this means it needs a whole slew of extra storage while the OS drive is locked and data copied.
3) External HDD has extra storage space for VSS.

IMO forget the windows imaging system --get yourself something like FREE Macrium and you won't have any of these issues.

Cheers
jimbo

Did some looking around and found this, which was interesting:

- create a directory on your USB drive
- right-click the directory and choose "Share with", "Specific people"
- choose yourself from the list of users and click Share and Done
- in the "Create System Image" menu choose "On a network location"
- now enter the URL for your share (\\your-computer\sharename)
- enter your username and password and click OK

Ref. HERE.

b1rd

davidhk said:

Why the system will not accept a NTFS formatted 32GB USB drive for system image back up ?
I just want to know why not USB flash drive.

davidhk said:

Well for one thing - looking at your C: drive, 581 GB - 533 GB (free) = 48 GB used. I would think it might be a little bit difficult to fit a 48 GB system image onto a 32 GB drive. Especially when the 32 GB rated flash drive only has 29.8 GB real space on it.

b1rd said:

Did some looking around and found this, which was interesting:



Ref. HERE.

b1rd

Yes. I have read that before I posted here.
I find that unreasonable and I have problem accepting that explanation.

b1rd said:

Did some looking around and found this, which was interesting:



Ref. HERE.

b1rd

Possible to create; impossible to restore from, Windows just won't detect the Network drive, during Image Restore, even if mapped.

NavyLCDR said:

Well for one thing - looking at your C: drive, 581 GB - 533 GB (free) = 48 GB used. I would think it might be a little bit difficult to fit a 48 GB system image onto a 32 GB drive. Especially when the 32 GB rated flash drive only has 29.8 GB real space on it.

I was not told I did not have enough disk space. Just a bad location or something like that.
However, I once used a 16GB USB and it did tell me there were not enough disk space.
48 GB are used in my C drive. There are other items besides system image that contribute to the 48 GB usage. Yes ? Such as , my pps, doc, pictures etc.

I wrote images to USB sticks using free Macrium. I try to avoid the native Windows functions because they are always very restrictive.