Can Etcher flash an image and preserve other files on the drive?

balenaEtcher
1

UNetBootin can flash an image onto a drive without wiping out the entire drive. This is very useful for larger capacity flash drives that contain user data, when the user only wants to flash another ISO and not delete everything else.

Is there a way to do this with Etcher?

2

Since Etcher flashes byte-to-byte (i.e. like dd does), it’s impossible for it to preserve anything that lies on the flashed target as of now.

3

Thanks for clarifying that. Where can one read about a comparison between Etcher and prior art tools? I’m particularly interested in UNetBootIn, which can preserve existing files, and Startup Disc Creator, which comes installed by default with many distros,

Honestly curious, because I haven’t had a need for Etcher until trying to install Pop_OS!, which despite my efforts for the past weeks, has not yet succeeded.