Q: How can I access the created image files without a physical USB device?Ī: Various disk image software is capable of showing the content of an image. As I did quite some parsing of the FAT file system for my DiskXS tool, I know this is a quite difficult and risky task, so I will leave it to tools specialized in this. To extend a FAT file system you would have to extend the allocation tables and move the data sectors that will be covered by the extended tables to unused space. Basically it consists of a header, two allocation tables and the data sectors itself. On top of that FAT by architecture is not intended to grow or shrink in size. Because of this USB Image Tool would have to perform all the file system and partition modifying tasks manually. For FAT/FAT32, which is used on most of the flash drives, there is no such built-in support. Indeed there is a built-in API support in Windows for changing NTFS partition sizes. By now USB Image Tool works regardless the used file system and partition type and I want to keep it this way. Q: Why doesn’t USB Image Tool expands/reduces the partition size?Ī: Changing partitions and file systems is a difficult (and risky) task. USB Image Tool now always requires admin rights. This is obsolete with beginning version 1.60. Right-click the executable and select “Run as administrator”. Q: Why is the mode selection not accessible (grayed)?Ī: Under Windows Vista the device mode requires administrative rights. If this doesn’t work, you can also take a look at the tools mentioned here: This will erase the MBR of your flash drive and Windows will try re-format it. If you don’t want to use the image on your flash drive any more and want to regain the original device size, you can use the Reset function. A freeware program is the Home Edition of Partition Wizard ( ). You can do this with various partition tools. What can I do?Ī: You have to extend the restored partition. Q: I restored a smaller image file to a larger flash drive. Using this option without resizing the partition can result in partial data loss. Please note that you can’t do this on images you already created. After that you can do the backup of the source device and restore it to the target device with having the truncate option activated. ![]() GParted Live CD) to fit on the target flash drive. Beforehand you should manually resize the partition on the source flash drive with a partition tool of your choice (f.e. Nevertheless USB Image Tool offers the option to truncate oversize images in device mode(version 1.53). The result is a corrupted file system that is not safe to use anymore. Also the partition info and file system info doesn’t match the real values, if you restore it to a smaller flash drive. Truncating this area will result in data loss. Even if your not using the full space on your flash drive, it might be possible that sectors at the end of the partition are in use to store data. Usually the partition on the flash drive (and so in the image) covers the whole flash drive. ![]() ![]() Can I restore it anyway?Ī: Generally it is not possible to restore a larger image file to a smaller device. Q: The image file is slightly larger than the flash drive. As long as the partition information on the flash drive doesn’t change and it is not a bootable device, it is ok to use the volume mode. Windows currently limits removable USB flash drives to only one volume. The volume mode processes the first volume on an USB flash drive. So if you want to make a backup of a bootable USB device, or you have created a flash drive with more than one partition, you should use the device mode. In contrast to the volume mode, the device mode copies the whole USB device, including boot sector. Q: What is the difference between device and volume mode?
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