Windows 10: How do I create a system image when Windows says my USB stick is not valid?

I have a Windows 7 laptop that I've upgraded to Windows 10 it can't run Windows 11. I am trying to create a system image on a 512GB USB stick. After locating it, Windows says "The drive is not a valid backup location."That's all it says, so I don't know what the underlying issue is, or how to resolve it. The computer's boot sequence says that a hard drive failure may be imminent, so I need to create a system image ASAP. What might I do to resolve the issue with my USB stick?

:)

 

Installing windows off of a USB stick

Step By Step from vista:
From admin cmd prompt

1. diskpart
1a. list disk
2. select disk 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit

Copy Windows Vista's DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\ (d being your vista cd and e being your usb stick)

And that's it, boot off your usb disk

 

Creating an installation USB stick





It says "Then have to find on the download file Steps for Creating an installation USB stick "

I don't really know what it means, and I can't find anything for installation USB stick in the
Windows 10 ISO file.

Does anyone know what I should do?

 

windows 10 create system image using usb stick

Hello,

I'm unable to create a System Image to a USB stick (as a network location). I've set this up using instructions I found

here (formatting USB stick to NTFS, changing permissions etc) and the backup wizard finds the path for the drive successfully. However when I enter 'network credentials' (variations of this, eg using the PC name in the path) I get an error message 'The
specific network location cannot be used' with an error code 0x80070544.

Is there a trick I'm missing here? Do the network credentials I'm being prompted for relate to the PC (I'm using my username and login) or the USB stick (there are no network credentials here).

Is there anything else I can try to make this work?

Any ideas appreciated!