USB booting :: USB Pens / working copies / duplicating

Hi everyone.
Sorry this is just a basic question ( again !)

I've got a good working DSL on a USB stick now.
If I want to copy this so I can boot an exact replica up from another stick....do I just drag the contents of the USB pen to another USB pen or do you have to 'ghost' / image the USB pen?

I see there is an option ' Make a CD Remaster'....that's not quite the same thing is it?

I'd really like a situation where I have say 3 sticks in the PC which are an exact mirror of each other...that way if one fails I can just carry on with another.

Sorry if this is posted in the wrong section and thanks for your help.

I think it depends on how you're booting the usb stick (if we presume that your usb sticks are formatted identically).

For syslinux/extlinux you could copy all of the files except for syslinux/extlinux.sys - these would need to be rewritten using syslinux/extlinux the first time. After than you could just copy all of the files that changed.

For grub/lilo I did not try this with a usb stick so I'm not sure, but I presume you could not just copy the grub/lilo boot files.

Thanks John.
I only asked this as it would be a sort of fail safe system....like mirrored drives or something....that could be so useful.
I'll try tonight ta.

original here.