Sunday 2 August 2015

How to copy your E2B USB drive to another USB drive

If you have your E2B USB drive working nicely and you want to make other bootable E2B USB drives from it, then you can use the MAKE_E2B_USB_DRIVE (run as admin).cmd script.



1. Download the latest (non-Beta) E2B version (you can use the non-DPMS version) - or find the E2B file you downloaded previously.

2. Extract the contents to an empty folder (e.g. C:\temp\E2B_MASTER)

(optional) Use the E2B_MASTER\UPDATE_E2B_DRIVE.CMD script to ensure your E2B 'master' drive is up to date, so that your colleagues will have the latest version and the website documentation will be accurate.

3. Copy all the files from your E2B USB drive to the same (E2B_MASTER) folder (skip any identical files that are already present). i.e. Just select all the files and folders in the root of the USB drive and copy them to the E2B_MASTER folder (you can omit the Recycle Bin and System volume Information folder!).

4. To make another USB drive - just run the MAKE_E2B_USB_DRIVE.cmd script from the (E2B_MASTER) folder and it will wipe, partition, format and copy all your E2B files to make a new E2B USB drive.

Usually, the new E2B drive will contain contiguous files because it has been freshly formatted and a single-thread copy process was used, but you can always run the MAKE_THIS_DRIVE_CONTIGUOUS.cmd script just to make sure.

If you update your E2B_MASTER folder later on (e.g. add or change ISOs, etc.), you can update all the E2B USB drives using the E2B_MASTER\UPDATE_E2B_DRIVE.CMD script which uses robocopy.

If you update an existing E2B USB drive, you will need to run the MAKE_THIS_DRIVE_CONTIGUOUS.cmd script.

Note: When you run the 'MAKE' or 'UPDATE' scripts, these two scripts are not copied to the USB drive.

Tip: To compare USB drives or folders, use WinMerge.

You could also ZIP up the entire E2B_MASTER folder, and make it available for download so that your colleagues/friends can easily make their own USB drives.

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