How to Copy OS from Laptop to USB Pen Drive
Tip: This tutorial also applies to similar demands of copying OS from a laptop HDD/SSD to a USB pen drive.
For example:
- How to transfer Windows OS from a laptop to USB drive and make it bootable?
- How to install the laptop OS on an external pen drive?
Why Do You Copy OS from Your Laptop to a USB Pen Drive
The biggest advantage for users to copy the operating system to USB is flexibility. As the USB pen drive is portable, if you have created a computer OS copy in it, you can access the copied computer system anywhere you like. In fact, other than carrying your laptop operating system elsewhere (at home, in the office, or on a business trip), there is another noticeable benefit.
With a bootable USB pen drive at hand, you shall feel worry-free and risk-free when accidents happen, especially the hardware failure or system blue/black screen of death that prevents you from booting up your laptop normally.
Backup OS in Pen Drive with Built-in Tool?
For users who want to copy os, there used to be a Windows built-in tool - Windows To Go. It is a feature in Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Education that enables the creation of a Windows To Go workspace that can be booted from a USB-connected external drive on PCs.
But this feature is removed in Windows 10, version 2004, and later operating systems. It does not support feature updates and therefore does not enable you to stay current. And it also requires a specific type of USB that is no longer supported by many OEMs. So if you want to copy the computer os from laptop to pen drive, you'd better choose a third-party tool to help.
How to Copy Laptop OS to a USB Pen Drive
As we know that the Windows To Go is not available in Windows 10. If you are trying to backup Windows 10 to USB with it, it's likely to receive the error "this is a removable drive and isn't compatible with Windows To Go" and fail to create Windows To Go with a non-certified USB flash drive.
As a result, we recommend you to switch to a reliable third-party backup and restore software - Qiling Backup to backup os. Once the system is cloned to the USB drive, you can boot the laptop OS anytime on any other computer or laptop, without requiring additional tools!
Key features of Qiling Backup:
- It helps you to clone, upgrade, or transfer your system easily.
- It protects your data in simple clicks, restores everything instantly.
- It supports you to create file backup, system backup, and disk backup.
Note: If you use the software to back up the laptop operating system, in addition, you can only restore the system from the USB pen drive via the software again.
Download Qiling Backup on your laptop, and follow the guide below to copy operating system to USB.
Step-by-step Guide to Create a Portable USB Pen Drive
USB requirements:
1. Check how much disk space is used for the system C drive. Let's assume 40GB. Then prepare a qualified USB drive, of which the disk capacity must be larger than 40GB.
2. Do you use an empty new USB drive or an old one? Make sure that all the important data has been safely transferred because the system clone will overwrite data on it completely.
3. Correctly connect the USB drive to your machine and make sure that Windows has detected it and assigned a drive letter to it.
Follow the overall process to create a portable Windows USB drive and boot from it:
Step 1. Launch Qiling Backup. Expand the menu and click "System Clone" in the tools page.
Step 2. On the "System clone" window, the software will choose the system partition and boot partition by default. Click "Next".
Tick "Sector by sector clone" option, it will clone all sectors from the source disk to the destination disk including your system data.
Step 3. Just Choose the USB drive as the destination disk.
Step 4. Preview the disk layout to confirm the settings of the source and destination disk. Click "Proceed". The software will start immediately cloning the default partitions of your desktop/laptop to the USB drive. After the cloning process is over, you can safely plug the USB drive out.
Tick Optimize for SSD, it will optimize the new SSD performance.
Step 5. Boot from the USB drive.
- Connect your portable USB to the computer
- Restart the computer and press "Del" to enter BIOS
- Set the PC to boot from the portable USB by changing the boot order in BIOS under the "Boot" tab
- Save changes and you'll see your system booting up from the USB drive
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