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Can boot media key be copied to another blank USB key

Hello, I normally create 1/2 a dozen USB keys when a new version comes out.  But it takes a long time to create that many USB keys.  If a create one USB key, can I just copy the files from that key to other blank keys ?  Or do I need to create each key within the rescue media builder ??

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I have never tried this but it should work fine.  Make one and see if it boots for you. :)

I did the experiment, and yes, it works !!  You can just copy the files from one USB to another via explorer and it works no problems.

Sorry - I was VERY wrong (I mixed up my USB sticks).  You definitely can NOT just copy the files from one key to another.  The computer will not recognize the USB stick it as bootable.  I believe the Acronis rescue media builder does something to the USB key to make it bootable.

If you have a working USB stick then a simple option here is to make a backup ATI image of the stick to a .tib file then restore that image to your other USB sticks one at a time.

So I tried the experiment, worked as I thought it would.

Question Gozzak, the flash drive you used to copy to, was it previously used?  Did it have any data on it? 

If it was previously used and you ran a quick format on the drive then copied to it, that would be the problem.

In my case, I used a previously used flash drive (on purpose to make sure this works).  First thing I did was open a command prompt and start Diskpart.  Once Diskpart was running I ran the following commands

  • list disk (this shows all installed disks and shows total size of each disk)
  • select disk # - where # is the chosen disk on which to use the diskpart tool - will return "disk # is now the selected disk (running list disk a second time will show an * by the selected disk confirming it is selected)
  • clean (this will remove all formatting and data from the disk and create unallocated space)
  • exit (to exit the diskpart utility)
  • Closed command prompt

I then opened Windows Disk Management, located the flash drive, (shown as Removable) right clicked on the drive and selected Create New Simple Volume, ran through the wizard changing Format from NTFS to FAT32 along the way and let it do its thing.

After that finished I copied the contents of a WinPE flash drive to this prepared drive.  When finished I removed the source flash drive using the eject feature of Windows, restarted the computer, selected the new drive as the boot drive, and it booted happily. :)

It is known behavior that previously used flash drives often times will not boot until cleaned and reformatted.