cloning USB stick to new USB stick?

[wonderings]

I have been trying to help a friends son get Windows 10 loaded on a PC he found in the garbage. It all works, had vista loaded, though specs support Win 10. They are a few thousand KM's away from me so working together over discord. They only have an iMac to work with there. I am trying to make a bootable USB installer of Windows 10. Tried a few things in Mac OS to make a bootable USB installer of Win 10 but all failed. I don't want to go down the route of terminal commands and things like that as his son is not well versed in computers so trying to make it as simple as possible. I was able to make a bootable Win 10 USB using my Windows 11 VM. This method worked perfectly. Problem is they don't have Windows to do this on their end. I was thinking of cleaning the USB stick and sending them the clone for them to put on USB on their end. I have never played around with cloning. I downloaded Carbon Copy Cloner which seems like it will work within the free trial.

I closed the drive and now have a folder on my desktop. Can I just zip that folder, send it over to my friends son, have him unzip, install the demo of Carbon Copy Cloner and use that folder to clone to his usb stick?

 

[AlixSPQR]

I have used the Boot Camp assistant several times to make a USB installer for ordinary PC's and custom builds. So your friend & son should be able to make one themselves. Can't answer your question regarding CCC, sorry.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I don't think CCC will be able to handle the booting aspect of a Windows USB installer.

I'm pretty sure that in the past I've used balenaEtcher on a Mac to create a working Windows USB installer from an image downloaded from Microsoft.

balenaEtcher - Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives

A cross-platform tool to flash OS images onto SD cards and USB drives safely and easily. Free and open source for makers around the world.

www.balena.io

 

[DeltaMac]

I suggest making a Win10 installer USB, then mail it to your friend.
(test it for booting before you mail it)
Might save you both some time!

 

[wonderings]

I don't think CCC will be able to handle the booting aspect of a Windows USB installer.

I'm pretty sure that in the past I've used balenaEtcher on a Mac to create a working Windows USB installer from an image downloaded from Microsoft.

balenaEtcher - Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives

A cross-platform tool to flash OS images onto SD cards and USB drives safely and easily. Free and open source for makers around the world.

www.balena.io

I have been trying with balenaEtcher with no luck. The only workable bootable USB Windows 10 installer I have made is using the Windows media creation tool. This is why I was hoping I could simply clone the drive, zip and send over and have him use that clone on his usb stick.

I suggest making a Win10 installer USB, then mail it to your friend.
(test it for booting before you mail it)
Might save you both some time!

I could, but there is a way we can do this without mailing a USB stick, which adds money to a free computer project.

 

[DeltaMac]

You're already adding money (and time) to that "free" project, right?
My idea is to send a working Win installer, so you don't need to waste more time by trying other methods to make the installer. That challenge of trying to make that USB on a different system can be frustrating, so just suggesting a method to make that process easier:
Make the Win installer on Windows.
Verify that it works.
Get it to the person that needs it.

 

[wonderings]

You're already adding money (and time) to that "free" project, right?
My idea is to send a working Win installer, so you don't need to waste more time by trying other methods to make the installer. That challenge of trying to make that USB on a different system can be frustrating, so just suggesting a method to make that process easier:
Make the Win installer on Windows.
Verify that it works.
Get it to the person that needs it.

I do not calculate my life and hours outside of work on an hourly basis, so yes it is still free in terms of not costing me or them any money. I will also gain as I will learn some thing I have not done before. There is no rush for this, no immediate need that this computer needs to be up and running today. Ultimately when running it will be used for Fortnite and Minecraft.