Stick to your the USB backup and simply create an image of it. There are several (free) tools on the market but this one is my favourite and very easy to use.
I use this tool constantly to backup and restore my bootable "Multiboot USB" stick http://www.alexpage.de/tag/usb-image-tool/
This uitlity creates a complete image file (backup...)of your USB stick - no matter if something is stored on it or not.That means if you used a 8GByte- USB stick you will end up with a 8GByte file - other tools work the same way.It is possible to compress the file but I never did this - it wouldn't make sense with 1TByte,2TByte external hdd's on the market......
After creating the image file take another USB stick - if possible the same size - restore from the newly created image file and test it.
MicroTest
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934 Posts
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April 17th, 2013 17:00
Stick to your the USB backup and simply create an image of it.
There are several (free) tools on the market but this one is my favourite and very easy to use.
I use this tool constantly to backup and restore my bootable "Multiboot USB" stick
http://www.alexpage.de/tag/usb-image-tool/
Grafixx01
8 Posts
0
April 18th, 2013 10:00
Ok, I'll try it. I'll let you know.
MicroTest
3 Apprentice
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934 Posts
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April 18th, 2013 11:00
Note:
This uitlity creates a complete image file (backup...)of your USB stick - no matter if something is stored on it or not.That means if you used a 8GByte- USB stick you will end up with a 8GByte file - other tools work the same way.It is possible to compress the file but I never did this - it wouldn't make sense with 1TByte,2TByte external hdd's on the market......
After creating the image file take another USB stick - if possible the same size - restore from the newly created image file and test it.
Grafixx01
8 Posts
0
April 18th, 2013 18:00
What I wanted to try to do with it is to came it into a VM so I can play with it and not ruin the actual laptop configurations.
MicroTest
3 Apprentice
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934 Posts
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April 18th, 2013 19:00
That's of course a different story.
If you want to run an OS inside a VM you will need the original installation CD of this operating system - not a system backup.
In VMware player - for instance - I had to install Windows XP from scratch by using the option
"Create a New Virtual Machine" and inserting my WinXP CD (see pictures below)
I am not aware of any other procedure.
If you want to tamper with your system use a third party backup software like Macrium Reflect
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx and restore the system within minutes if something goes wrong.
You should have second backup anyway - in case Dell's system backup doesn't work - some users already had problems with it.....