Is it possible to convert a bootable USB thumb drive to a bootable ISO file?

V

Village_Elder

Member
Hi, I apologize if this has already been covered, or if I'm posting it in the wrong place, but I've been all over this forum and cannot find an answer to this question.

Background:

I've been an EasyBCD user for several years and it happily manages my Windows Boot Manager. I don't have any urgent issues, but recently thought it would be cool to try to create a multiboot UFD (USB Flash Drive) for emergency restore purposes. This UFD contains various utilities that I use to manage my desktop box for routine maintenance and disaster recovery. The documented EasyBCD feature works as advertised.

But I'd also like to convert that bootable UFD to a bootbale ISO that can be stored on hard disk and accessible by my Windows Boot Manager at startup. ISO format would facilitate backup and minimize the number of UFD's I need to manage.

The Problem:

No one on this forum (and in other forums I've visited) seems to have addressed this issue. Most of the discussions center around making an Windows installation ISO bootable by using 3rd party tools like Imgburn or Ultraiso, Poweriso, etc. In those cases, you have the original bootimage file available to you from the installation CD or in one of the boot folders, etc. But an inspection of the boot folders generated by EasyBCD has no boot image file. The many times I've tried to work around the problem by injecting various boot image files have all resulted in failure.

So, I'm trying to resist the urge to jump into Linux and hack something together, or reverse engineer the EasyBCD build process. I'm thinking there's got to be an easy answer to this question. So what am I missing?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thx, in advance.
 
What operating system do you want to create a bootable drive for? Is your system x86 or x64 (32 or 64 bit) and does it use a UEFI (EFI) or BIOS to boot? If it is Windows 10 or 11 your USB drive would need to be at least 8gb in size.
You can create bootable media directly from Microsoft in the case of W10 or 11.

Alternatively you could clone your existing drive to another partition.
 
Last edited:
Ex_Brit said:
What operating system do you want to create a bootable drive for? Is your system x86 or x64 (32 or 64 bit) and does it use a UEFI (EFI) or BIOS to boot? If it is Windows 10 or 11 your USB drive would need to be at least 8gb in size.
You can create bootable media directly from Microsoft in the case of W10 or 11.

Alternatively you could clone your existing drive to another partition.
Click to expand...
Thanx for the response.

I'm not sure you've addressed my question. I'm able to boot from the UFD created by EasyBCD. As mentioned, the process works as advertised. What I want to do is to convert that UFD to a bootable ISO image. If I misunderstood your response, I apologize.

While awaiting a response to my question, I've explored another option. I discovered that EasyBCD can boot from a Microsoft VHD (Virtual Hard Drive). So I used Rufus to save a VHD of my UFD - these acronyms are driving me crazy :smile:

Then I built an EasyBCD menu option to boot from that VHD - stored on another drive as a VHD image. But when I reboot my machine, it boots into the wrong partition, indicating that EasyBCD's menu entry points to the wrong partition.

Color me confused ...

At any rate, my preferred OS platform is Win7x64, although I have Win10x64 and Win11x64 installed in virtual machines and can test it there.

Any ideas?
 
My fav system was Vista Ultimate but 7 became a close second.
I'll call in my associate to answer this is as I am a bit vague about VHD's
@Terry60 can you answer this?
 
Converting a bootable USB thumb drive to a bootable ISO file can be a useful task for creating backup copies or simplifying management. While it may not be directly supported by EasyBCD or traditional methods, there are alternative approaches you can try.

One potential method involves using specialized software or utilities designed for this purpose. Tools like Rufus, WinToUSB, or ISO2USB can assist in creating bootable ISO files from USB drives. These utilities often offer features for converting bootable USB drives to ISO format, allowing you to preserve the bootable functionality while storing the image on your hard disk.

Another approach is to use disk imaging software that supports capturing the contents of a bootable USB drive and saving it as an ISO file. Programs like Clonezilla, Macrium Reflect, or Acronis True Image may offer the ability to create disk images from USB drives, including bootable ones, which can then be saved in ISO format for easy storage and management.

Keep in mind that the specific steps and options available may vary depending on the software you choose to use. It's recommended to carefully review the documentation or guides provided by the software developers to ensure compatibility and proper usage.

While it may require some experimentation and testing, these methods offer potential solutions for converting bootable USB thumb drives to bootable ISO files, providing flexibility and convenience in managing your emergency restore utilities.
 
Village_Elder said:
, it boots into the wrong partition, indicating that EasyBCD's menu entry points to the wrong partition.
Click to expand...
From your extensive and complex use of EasyBCD, I take it that you are thoroughly familiar with it, but nonetheless I'll ask anyway.
You are aware that the BCD doesn't actually contain drive letters, but addresses partitions using a UID which hashes the unique device serial and the partition offset on that device ?
That can cause problems when copying or cloning a BCD from one device to another, as the serial number part of that ID will still indicate the original device, not the new copy.
Such conflicts can readily be resolved by opening the new BCD and deleting/re-adding the failing entries so that the copied BCD corrects itself.
 
betty4920taylor said:
Converting a bootable USB thumb drive to a bootable ISO file can be a useful task for creating backup copies or simplifying management. While it may not be directly supported by EasyBCD or traditional methods, there are alternative approaches you can try.

One potential method involves using specialized software or utilities designed for this purpose. Tools like Rufus, WinToUSB, or ISO2USB can assist in creating bootable ISO files from USB drives. These utilities often offer features for converting bootable USB drives to ISO format, allowing you to preserve the bootable functionality while storing the image on your hard disk.

Another approach is to use disk imaging software that supports capturing the contents of a bootable USB drive and saving it as an ISO file. Programs like Clonezilla, Macrium Reflect, or Acronis True Image may offer the ability to create disk images from USB drives, including bootable ones, which can then be saved in ISO format for easy storage and management.

Keep in mind that the specific steps and options available may vary depending on the software you choose to use. It's recommended to carefully review the documentation or guides provided by the software developers to ensure compatibility and proper usage.

While it may require some experimentation and testing, these methods offer potential solutions for converting bootable USB thumb drives to bootable ISO files, providing flexibility and convenience in managing your emergency restore utilities.
Click to expand...
Thanx for the reply.

I've tried some of the tools you've mentioned, specifically Rufus and Acronis. Rufus is designed to go from ISO to USB - not the other way around. WinToUSB and ISO2USB seems to do the same. Acronis is one of my go-to imaging tools and I've used it for years, and I've never known it to produce ISO's. But I may have missed a new feature. It's TIB format is, however, proprietary and not bootable. Never used Macrium Reflect, but will review Clonezilla - been years since I looked at that.

But since I posed my question, I've taken the opportunity to try many several bit-level imaging tools like ImageUSB, USBIT, Anyburn, Folder2ISO, Mkisofs, etc. - all without luck.

I'll fiddle with this for another few days before I throw in the towel.

Again, thanks.
 
Terry60 said:
From your extensive and complex use of EasyBCD, I take it that you are thoroughly familiar with it, but nonetheless I'll ask anyway.
You are aware that the BCD doesn't actually contain drive letters, but addresses partitions using a UID which hashes the unique device serial and the partition offset on that device ?
That can cause problems when copying or cloning a BCD from one device to another, as the serial number part of that ID will still indicate the original device, not the new copy.
Such conflicts can readily be resolved by opening the new BCD and deleting/re-adding the failing entries so that the copied BCD corrects itself.
Click to expand...
Thanx for the reply.

Yes, I'm aware that EasyBCD points to UID's, but didn't think about editing the UID's of a resultant ISO. I will have to look at that. Will try it later today and get back to you.

Thx
 
Village_Elder said:
Thanx for the reply.

Yes, I'm aware that EasyBCD points to UID's, but didn't think about editing the UID's of a resultant ISO. I will have to look at that. Will try it later today and get back to you.

Thx
Click to expand...

@Terry60


I've looked into your suggestion. 1st, let me say that converting a VHD to ISO is off the table. All the ISO building tools I know about need a boot image file in order to determine where to look for the boot loader. The UFD file that I have (generated by Rufus) does not have one. So that's a non-starter.

So I tried to boot from the VHD file. If I add a new entry and select "Microsoft VHD File", the resulting entry tries to execute winload.exe - the Windows loader. But the VHD that I'm using runs a Linux partition editor - gparted - and doesn't use the Windows loader. So the boot process fails and crashes.

If I select the Linux/BSD or NeoGrub options, I get different, but similar crashes. It either dumps me onto the Grub command line or tries in vain to find the a menu.1st file for boot directives.

I even created a primary partition on one of my physical hard drives and copied the VHD to it, so that it would be persistent across boots. I then created the EasyBCD entries I wanted. That way, I was certain that the UID's were correct. I got the same results.

However, in my Virtual Machine (Oracle Virtual Box), I can use the VHD file as a physical hard disk, and it boots into it with no problem and gives me the option to select and run all my EasyBCD entries.

So I'm stuck. I know the VHD is valid and works. But EasyBCD gives me no way to access it from the Windows boot manager. I know I'm missing something, and it's probably really simple, but I just can't wrap my head around it.

Any ideas?
 
Village_Elder said:
Thanx for the reply.

Yes, I'm aware that EasyBCD points to UID's, but didn't think about editing the UID's of a resultant ISO. I will have to look at that. Will try it later today and get back to you.

Thx
Click to expand...
Okay, problem solved.

I want to thank everyone for trying to help me through this. It turns out I was making things waaay more complicated than necessary - which is what I often do. If you want the details of what I did, I'm more than happy to oblige.

Needless to say, EasyBCD is a wonderful tool. - powerful, flexible, and very easy to use.

Thanks again.
 
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