Laptop backup

as for the the usb drive you have several options two of which are:
a) you can do this completly yourself
writie your own dos batch file
1) the first thing the dos batch file would do is an "if exists" test for a folder on your usb drive.
if it passes then go onto the next step if it failes throw up an dialog box or simply exit.
2) run your acronis ".tis" file this will perform the backup. At this point we would know the usb drive is connected.
the downside of the above method is that you would have to schedule your bat file from outside of acronis (ex windows scheduler) you would also need to write/configure/test the batch file yourself.

option b) is to use "drive notify" a nifty utility written by mudcrab. you define your backup job from within acronis and call drivenotify as pretask of your acronis job definiton. Drvnotify then checks for your drive and prompts you to connect the drive if it is not already connected. And advantage of this method is it lets you define jobs within acronis and run them from within acronis. a downside of this method is there free and paid versions of drvnotify if you need its is worth it ($10).

see GroverH reconmendations of utilites and tips:
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/3426