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Main => Everything Else => Topic started by: SNAAKE on April 30, 2010, 02:06:15 pm

Title: clone a flash drive?
Post by: SNAAKE on April 30, 2010, 02:06:15 pm
is this possible at all?

this usb flash drive is formatted with "CDFS" file system. I just need to make a clone. any experts around here wanna shed some light on how this might work??

thanks!! :burgerking:
Title: Re: clone a flash drive?
Post by: MonMotha on April 30, 2010, 02:18:07 pm
Does the drive show up as a standard "removable disk" or does it show up as a CD-ROM drive with a CD in it (the "U3" devices did this so that they could install their software using autorun).  The former is doable; the latter requires a hacked up (firmware) flash drive.

It's not hard to put ISO-9660 (what Windows calls "CDFS") onto a flash drive from, say, Linux, but I'd like to make sure it'll actually do what you want before going down that path.

Note that ISO-9660 is a read-only filesystem.
Title: Re: clone a flash drive?
Post by: SNAAKE on April 30, 2010, 02:33:39 pm
it shows as a cd rom

Title: Re: clone a flash drive?
Post by: Samstag on May 01, 2010, 12:54:21 am
If it shows up as a cd drive you should be able to use cd cloning/imaging tools.  Otherwise there are free imaging tools out there like clonezilla and hdclone. 

My personal preference would be "dd", but I doubt you want to go that route.
Title: Re: clone a flash drive?
Post by: MonMotha on May 01, 2010, 03:11:53 pm
Thing is, most USB flash drives don't show up as CD-ROM drives, and those that do are often read-only (since writing to a "CD" is more complicated than a "hard drive").  The only ones I know of that show up like that are made to autorun some crap software when the drive is connected to a Windows machine.  You can't really clone that behavior, though you could copy the filesystem.