capture Win 7 image to usb

Hi Tahir,
thanks for the quick response...just one more thing. where do I get the Win PE image. Thanks

you can download it from Microsoft

below is the link and description about how to make bootable win PE usb

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/library/hh825109.aspx

i use the free paragon software for imaging any OS to any destination.
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/download.html

The simple way will be to use the built-in backup utility in Windows.

Open System Image Backup in Windows 7
Hit Start, click the arrow to the right of the “Getting Started” item, and then click “Back up your files.”

In the “Backup and Restore” window, click the “Create a system image” link.

When you first open the tool, it will scan your system for external drives. You can then decide where you want to save the image. It can be to an external drive, multiple DVD’s, or on a network location. Select where you want to save your backup and then click “Next.”

By default, the tool only backs up your system drive. You can include other drives if you want, but remember that this will add to the size of the final image. Typically, we like to create separate image backups for each drive.

At the confirmation screen, notice the amount of space the image may take. If anything doesn’t look right, you can still go back and make adjustments. If everything looks okay, click the “Start Backup” button.

You’ll see a progress meter as the tool creates the image.

Hope this helps.

thanks guys I'll give it a try and let you know...thanks

i've seen many questions about the windows imaging software here...
maybe best to test a couple

Use Clonezilla

clonezilla.org/

vivas I tried the s/w and keeps failing at 55%. robs the Win 7 image created by the system will not install on another PC

>>  vivas I tried   <<  try the suggested ones above please; this one is unknown to me

I've been able to grab the image using ghost but I can't export it to a USB to be bootable. Tried doing the same with WDS but I have to sysprep to capture the image...and of course as expected sysprep fails...

FOG

The FOG Project provides a web-based tool for disk cloning, aimed at tying together a variety of open source tools to make it easy to provide image solutions for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. It used PXE (Preboot eXecution Environment) booting to download a small Linux client and perform the imaging remotely, making it much easier to maintain a large batch of computers than by shuffling around manual disks.

If you're interested in learning more about how to use FOG, check out this tutorial.

According to the FOG user guide, FOG is licensed under the GPL, and it's PHP source code can be downloaded from SourceForge.

Rajul this is an interesting one since I like working with FOSS. the manual is a bit sketchy on capturing the image...do you pxe boot it and have the server and the reference host on the same network or how do you go about capturing the image?

Hi Elijoh,

Did you checked this below link ?

https://opensource.com/business/16/2/creating-disk-images-with-fog

Thanks Rajul I will try this it looks most promising...have you image a Windows host with it?

https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/42021-configure-and-deploy-a-windows-7-image-via-usb

this worked for me