Imaging a USB Drive with Datto Utilities

Topic

This article describes the method for imaging Datto Utilities onto a USB drive.

Environment

  • Datto Utilities

Description

The Datto Utilities environment (sometimes referred to as "Datto Stick"), is available for download at download.datto.com. The Datto Utilities application includes the Bare Metal Restore (BMR), SIRIS Imaged, and Datto Endpoint Backup restoration environments. Each of these are separate products that have their own unique uses and workflows.

  • Datto updates Datto Utilities on a regular basis. Ensure that the USB stick has the latest version available from downloads.datto.com before use.
  • The Datto Utilities version of the Bare Metal Restore (BMR) environment is only available for Datto appliances running the Datto IRIS 4 (Ubuntu 20.04) OS.
  • Before using the Bare Metal Restore utility to image new hardware, it is critical to review all hardware prerequisites in the BMR Getting started article.
  • Before using the SIRIS Imaged utility to image new hardware for use as a SIRIS device, it is critical to review all hardware prerequisites in the Getting started with SIRIS Imaged article.
  • Datto Utilities is only compatible with writable USB media. Attempts to run the application from read-only media, such as a CD or DVD, will produce unreliable results.

Prerequisites

The following items should be available when starting this process:

  • USB drive that is at least 8GB.
  • USB drive must be at least 2.0, but 3.0 is strongly recommended.
  • Datto recommends using the latest version of balenaEtcher to image the drive. Any other tool that writes the image directly to the destination without altering it can be used to image your USB stick. Examples include Win32DiskImager, Fedora Media Writer, USBImager, and dd. Do not use UNetbootin, Rufus, RMPrepUSB, Universal USB Installer, Ventoy, or livecd-iso-to-disk.

NOTE   Earlier versions of this article contained instructions for using Rufus or UNetbootin to image the USB drive. These solutions will NO LONGER BE COMPATIBLE with new versions (8 and higher) of Datto Utilities and so should no longer be used.

IMPORTANT  Imaging your USB drive will format it entirely. Make sure the USB drive contains no valuable data before imaging.

Obtaining the ISO

Download the Datto Utilities image (.ISO) from the Datto Downloads page by navigating to the Datto Images tab and clicking the Download link under the Datto Utilities ISO section. Once the image file has downloaded, proceed to the next section.

Imaging the USB Drive with balenaEtcher

A free version of balenaEtcher is available for download here. It is available for Windows, Linux or Mac. Once downloaded and installed, follow the instructions below to image the USB stick.

  1. Attach the USB drive to your machine, and open balenaEtcher. Click Flash from file, and select the Datto Utilities ISO you downloaded from downloads.datto.com.

  2. Choose the USB drive you wish to image to from the displayed list of drives and click Select.

  3. When you are ready to image the flash drive, click Flash.

  4. balenaEtcher will notify you when imaging has completed. At this stage, you can safely remove the USB drive.

    NOTE  Upon completion of the imaging, a Windows system may offer to format the drive, because it does not recognize the filesystem on the USB. This should not be done as it will overwrite the changes that were just made.

  5. Once you have imaged the USB stick, proceed to Booting a Target Machine with Datto Utilities.

If there are any warnings or issues, notate them and attempt the image again on another USB drive.

Additional Resources