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Creating Bootable Rescue Media using Acronis TrueImage Home

Once you’ve installed Acronis True Image Home, the first step may not be what you might expect. Rather than
thinking about what to backup, we need to first prepare for a restore.

(Second installment in the “Backing Up” series.)

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The scenario you want to be ready for is when your machine won’t boot. Even if you have a backup, it’s no good to you if you can’t boot your machine and run software that would restore that backup.

Your first step, then, is to use Acronis’ built in wizard to create a bootable CD.

(Downloadable mp4 – 5,647,195 bytes)

Transcript

Now that you’ve installed Acronis, there’s actually a very important first step that you need to take before even backing up your machine.

And that is to create a Bootable Rescue Media.

What this wizard does is it creates a bootable CD, or the image of a bootable CD, that you would use in the case where you want to restore from a backup, but your machine won’t boot.

In most cases, what you’ll do is run through the wizard fairly quickly. The default options are pretty much what you want.

I have it create an ISO image.

And, in this particular case, that’s my only option since this machine has no CD burner.

Once you’ve created the ISO image, you would then burn it to CD using a tool like Image Burn.

In this particular case, it’s now asking me where I want to put it and what I want to call it.

I’m giving it a name, Acronis Rescue CD ISO.

These are a summary of the options that I’ve selected.

It’s a fairly quick process to actually create the image.

All it’s really done is created a 65 megabyte file.

Once completed, you can then, as I said, use a tool like Image Burn to write that to CD. I’ll actually show that as a separate step later.

But, to reiterate, the important take-away here, is before even considering what and how and whether to backup, make sure that you create a bootable rescue media that you would use in the worst case when your machine doesn’t boot.

Do this

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17 comments on “Creating Bootable Rescue Media using Acronis TrueImage Home”

  1. I use Acronis but it is my understanding you can boot from the cd the software comes on. Why do you need to make a cd?

    Many people – perhaps most – download Acronis and have no CD.

    Leo
    18-Aug-2009

    Reply
  2. Acronis TI bootable CD does not work on my Toshiba laptop with SATA drive unless I change the properties of the drive in the BIOS (to non AHCI) and then I fall into other problems when I want to restart after replacing an image file for my C:.
    There is a workaround though by not using a bootable CD–but then Windows on C: must still boot!

    Reply
  3. I too have tried to use Acronis on my Toshiba laptop without any sucess. It will not make proper backups on an external drive or my network drive. Their support personel were unable to solve the problem. In fact they did not even find a discussion thread on their own forum that was slightly helpful for over three months and it had been posted by one of their own personel. I am glad Acronis works for you but I have given up and gone to using Ghost which I use on my desktop computer. Ghost has work perfectly on the Toshiba. I asked Acronis for a refund but they will only keep sending me back to the same support personel that cannot solve the problem. I am not impressed with Acronis.

    Reply
  4. I have Acrois TI Home and I did made a rescue cd. How often, if ever, must a new rescue cd be made? The cd I made was done this past May ’09. Unlike periodic, or regular, backups I was wondering if the rescue cd also needed refreshing. Thanks.

    Only if you lose it. Smile Though I would also make a new one if you update your version of Acronis.

    Leo
    19-Aug-2009

    Reply
  5. A few questions: is the bootable rescue media for booting into your OS? What specifically is included in this image(entire registry, software settings, …)?
    65 MB image? Can you use a (at least 65 MB) 256 MB or larger USB flash drive to have this image written to and booted from?
    On my Attache’ 1 GB flash drive it has, I think, a partition that is recognized as a CD. On systems which do not have the capability(BIOS or otherwise) to boot from USB and/or Flash drives…would this “CD” ~partition be a viable option for storing a bootable image? When you write an image on a flash drive and make it bootable, can you write additional information or delete the image?

    Te bootable media is completely unrelated to what’s on your hard disk. Remember – it has to be able to boot even if the hard drive is completely blank, so that you could restore a backup image to that blank hard drive. The bootable media is a completely stand-alone OS (I believe it’s based on a Linux distribution). I suppose there are ways to add to it, but in general no – it’s sole purpose us to run the Acronis recovery tools and nothing more.

    Leo
    20-Aug-2009

    Reply
  6. The “Downloadable mp4” gave me a 2 min video with no picture and no sound. It used Windows Media Player.

    VLC Player will play it. (I’m still experimenting with formats. Check back, I may add more.)

    Leo
    20-Aug-2009

    Reply
  7. I am looking for your video on “how to restore an entire system image” using Acronis. If I remember correctly, you mentioned that there is one available, but I simply could not find it. I am no techee and just received a PC with WinXP and some software already installed, however, I have no access to the installation CDs (not for XP nor for any of the other programs). I would like to find out the steps to creating the DVDs, which will allow me to restore the entire disk drive (all I have is one hard drive with one partition: “C:”) in case of a complete disaster. I would very much appreciate your help on this issue.

    You misheard – that video only became available yesterday: Restoring An Image Using Acronis TrueImage Home

    Leo
    23-Sep-2009

    Reply
  8. Hi Leo,
    Thanks for the new video on restoring a full image using Acronis. Now that I have all the required steps, I tried the backup procedure. I installed the Software and that was successful, however, when I tried to create the Rescue disk (I am using a DVD+R CD), the process fails. I must say that I poked around the Web to find some Software which would allow me to create a bootable version of my XP OS and found BartPE. I used this Software and was successful in creating the bootable DVD using the same media. In other words, it does not seem like a media problem, but rather a Software issue. Any idea what could be the problem and how to resolve it, as I would very much like to have Acronis Software as my backup solution.

    Thanks again for all your help.

    Can’t really say, since you didn’t provide any details of exactly how things are failing for you.

    Leo
    24-Sep-2009

    Reply
  9. Hi Leo,
    Thanks for your prompt reply. Basically, all I do is place the DVD in the drive and activate the menu option in Acronis which attempts to create the Rescue disk. When prompted, I select the DVD media as the target (instead of an ISO file, which is the only other option). Then, I see a “Processing…” window with a green bar for about 45 seconds. As the bar reaches the end, I get the following message:
    Bad Media! Provide another media and try again.

    If I try it on a DVD which I had previously used to burn BartPE, Acronis detects that the media is not empty and prompts me to Format it. When I accept, it attempts the operation once more and displays the same message as above. Is it possible that the Rescue Disk media is limited to a specific format, e.g. CD-R and will not accept DVD as a media for this purpose?
    Once again, your help would be greatly appreciated.

    Why not just try the CD-R? I do believe that since what’s being written is so small that a CD-R is assumed.

    Leo
    29-Sep-2009

    Reply
  10. Hi Leo,
    Just wanted to inform you (and all readers) that I was finally successful with the creation of the Rescue Media and then went on to create my first full backup. However, I had to perform 2 changes before succeeding:
    1. Modify the default archive size under: Tools->Options->Default backup options->Archive splitting. Set it to: Fixed Size 4.7 GB DVD Drive.
    2. Use DVD-R and not DVD+R media. Unfortunately, Acronis was not able to write to the DVD+R media (though other software packages were successful).

    Is the above limitation a known issue? If so, do you know if it will be addressed in any future version?

    Anyway, I have it working now and hopefully the backup content is in good shape, just in case…

    Thanks again for all your help.

    Reply
  11. I tried Acronis TrueImage Home 2010 and the interface is a bit different.
    My purpose is HD replacement. I wasn’t successful with my restore attempt and I am coming here to figure out what to do. I installed from CD and made a backup to restore from.
    Starting over again, here is what I have:
    I installed AcronisTI and made a bootable CD(even though I have a CD I purchased with the box)
    This changed the status under “Your System” from “not fully protected” to fully protected. I wonder why it would say this without my backing up again(I did to begin with).
    I don’t see “My Computer” under backup; rather, I see “My Disks” or “Files & Folders.”
    I am guessing “My Disks” is the best choice.
    Next at the top: Disk backup: “Disk and Partition Backup.”
    Under this stage called “Partitions to back up” I am confused.
    I am on an Asus EEE PC 1000HE and it has four partitions: 1)C NTFS (Unlabeled) capacity 72.06 GB(ONLY one selected by default) 12.39 GB used, Pri,Act

    2)D NTFS(Unlabeled) capacity 72.06 GB , 2.059 GB used, Pri
    3)E FAT32(PE) capacity 4.888 GB 3.369 GB used, Pri Hid
    4)F None(Unlabeled) 39.50 MB, 0x used Pri

    Where does the Master Boot Record come into play? In this stage I see the steps as follows: Required Steps: 1)What to back up)on this one currently
    2)Archive location
    3)Finish.
    Also, because I restored my backup to my new hard drive, will I just restore from my new image over the old, unsuccessful image which did not boot?

    Reply
  12. (Cont)Restarting Backup/Restore operations

    I am at What to back up and by default Neither “Back up sector-by-sector (requires more storage space)” nor “Back up unallocated space”(which is grayed out) are checked.

    Reply
  13. (Cont) reattempting Backup/Restore
    sorry, one more detail on this stage
    Under the type for the E it says “FAT32(LBA)” and for F it says nothing under space used and “0xEF (EFI)”
    for type.
    What do these mean? Is the MBR always on the system partition(primary and active)?

    Reply
  14. Leo I made an Acronis Restore Disk but Boot system is Linux which does not read my drive letters correctly so the image is difficult to restore.
    Can you help me with a tutorial how to make a WinPE based Restore Disk which I am told will read my drive letters correctly. Please Help Me!!!

    Reply
  15. i want to make bootable pendrive with operating system and software which is installed the another system. So that i save our time.

    Reply

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