HI Ilya,

You can do either / or.

You can make an Acronis Survival Kit - this is essentially creates a small (2GB) hidden FAT32 partition at the front of an existing USB hard drive.  This will allow the PC to boot from it to do offline rescue media things (backup or recovery) and allow the rest of the USB drive to be used for storing backups.

Alternatively, you can use the regular rescue media builder function.  Once that's done, you can still use the rest of the USB drive to store files on, but they will be on the same parition as the boot files for the rescue media.  If you want to UPDATE the rescue media later, don't rebuild it on the drive directly or it may wipe the drive in the process.  The simple work-a-round is to just create the boot.wim file (an option for the output of the rescue media) and copy it over the existing one.

Test on a drive where you don't have any critical data on (just to get the hang of it and make sure it's not wiped in the process).

Whether you use the Survival Kit or Rescue Media, I suggest booting it and creating the backup from that, rather than via the Windows UI. And boot it in the same mode (UEFI or Legacy) as your laptop.

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

HI Ilya,

You can do either / or.

You can make an Acronis Survival Kit - this is essentially creates a small (2GB) hidden FAT32 partition at the front of an existing USB hard drive.  This will allow the PC to boot from it to do offline rescue media things (backup or recovery) and allow the rest of the USB drive to be used for storing backups.

Alternatively, you can use the regular rescue media builder function.  Once that's done, you can still use the rest of the USB drive to store files on, but they will be on the same parition as the boot files for the rescue media.  If you want to UPDATE the rescue media later, don't rebuild it on the drive directly or it may wipe the drive in the process.  The simple work-a-round is to just create the boot.wim file (an option for the output of the rescue media) and copy it over the existing one.

Test on a drive where you don't have any critical data on (just to get the hang of it and make sure it's not wiped in the process).

Thank you.

I have a version of Acronis True Image that came with the Crucial SSD that I bought, which does not include the Survival Kit tool (though I know I can buy it). So I think I'll go the second route you suggested.

However, I'm still a little bit confused on just what I need to do. (I'm a newbie at this...) Could you please explain it step by step? For example, should I (or can I) have a smaller flash drive be the rescue media and then back up the system to the larger external hard drive? What I'm talking about is not just storing files on it, but backing up the whole system to it, so that when I install the SSD I can make it have the OS and all the files from my current HDD. 

Thanks for your patience.

BrunoC wrote:

Whether you use the Survival Kit or Rescue Media, I suggest booting it and creating the backup from that, rather than via the Windows UI. And boot it in the same mode (UEFI or Legacy) as your laptop.

Could you please explain what you mean in a little more detail? I'm a bit confused. What does it mean to "boot it and create the backup from that"? Should the backup be on the same external drive as the rescue media or a different one? How do I "boot it in the same mode (UEFI or Legacy) as my laptop" and how do I know which mode my laptop is in? 

Thank you for your patience... 

Ilya,

I don't know what you have in your laptop now, but I assume just one hard drive.

You will need a small thumb drive to create the rescue media, and also a large enough drive to back up the data to.

First, create a Rescue media using True Image. This can be on the small thumb drive. It does not need to be the same drive as you store the backup.

From Windows start menu, select Run and enter msinfo32. In the summary, look for BIOS mode. It will say UEFI or Legacy so make a note of which.

Next, plug in your drive to back up to and the rescue media.

Next, boot your laptop from the True Image rescue media. Since I don't know about your laptop or how you can select to boot from another drive, I cannot be explicit here. On some machines, you can get a boot menu that lists all the attached drives. In my case, I will see the Rescue media listed twice but one will say UEFI and the other will not. If your laptop is UEFI, then boot the Rescue media with UEFI. Otherwise, not.

It will start a version of True Image from the Rescue media. Do a full Disk and Partitions backup of the drive you are replacing. Run the validation option.

If that completes OK, you would then turn everything off and replace the HDD with the SSD.

Next you would again boot the rescue media and restore from the backup you created to the new SSD drive..

Once completed, you should shut down, remove the backup drive and Rescue media and then boot the laptop. You may need to go into the BIOS to be sure the right thing is selected as a boot option. If your machine is UEFI, you will boot from Windows Boot Manager on the SSD.

Now let's wait for someone else to chime in and make sure I didn't make a mistake in what I said here.

Ilya,

Could you provide the version #?  I was assuming you had the full 2019 version since you posted in the 2019 thread.

Yes, since this appears to be an OEM version (came with hard drive) and most likely older too, you'll need to create separate rescue media on a small thumb drive and store backups on something else.  I wouldn't recommend storing backups on a flash drive as they typically won't have enough room for many backups with cleanup and they are generally pretty slow for writing data.

Although your version is sure to be older and slightly different, the instructions here should help you create your rescue media.

https://kb.acronis.com/content/61632

To check what mode your laptop is in, follow this article:  

https://www.eightforums.com/threads/bios-mode-see-if-windows-boot-in-uefi-or-legacy-mode.29504/

To determine if your rescue media is booted in UEFI or legacy mode, follow this article:

https://kb.acronis.com/content/59877

BrunoC,

Thank you so much!!! This is very clear and super helpful. I'll report back when I'm done.

Bobbo_3C0X1,

I have Acronis True Image 2019, Build 14350.

Thank you so much for your help!

Ilya, the final ATI 2019 build was 17750 if that is an option for you to be able to upgrade to. This was for the full paid version of ATI.  I do not see any mention of build 14350 so assume this was an OEM version build?

Steve, this is the free version that came with the purchase of a Crucial SSD.

Hi all again: new problem (let me know if I should start a new thread about it),

I was building the rescue media on a flash drive and after a while Acronis gave me this error message:

Unable to create bootable media.

Unable to copy the product files.

I'm attaching the log.

What should I do?

Ilya, it looks like you may need to do a bit of repair to the Windows installation.

You will probably need to run SFC and maybe DISM. Here's an article to read about it although you can Google to find many articles.

https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/repair-windows-10-using-dism-sfc/

You run these commands from an elevated Command prompt. Right click on Start and select Command Prompt (Admin)

I always do a "dry run" with these commands. That is, I run them first with the options to check but not try to repair. Then if I see problems I try the repair.

I usually run
SFC /VERIFYONLY
first, just to see what it says. Then I'll run
SFC /SCANNOW
to fix any problems.

If there are problems that SFC cannot fix, then I go to DISM

First,
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
then
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
and finally
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

I had a similar problem to yours once and DISM fixed it.

Agree with Bruno's recommendations. You may also want to format the USB with diskpart /clean and then go I to disk management and initialize and quick format as fat32 for good measure too.

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

Agree with Bruno's recommendations. You may also want to format the USB with diskpart /clean and then go I to disk management and initialize and quick format as fat32 for good measure too.

I tried to wipe it with diskpart, but it gave me an error message: "Access denied." When I do LIST DISK, the flash drive is detected.

Also, after this my flash drive became messed up: when it's inserted, it does show up under "This PC," but when I click on it, it says "Please insert a disk into USB drive" (and it's still detected with diskpart's LIST DISK)

What happened?

ilya, you have to launch diskpart under a command prompt with "run as administrator" 

Then, list disk

identify the disk # that correlates to the correct drive

Select disk #

clean

After that exist diskpart and close command prompt.  Go to control panel >>> administrative tools >>> computer management (right-click and "run as administrator) >>> storage >>>> disk management

locate the drive.  locate the partition on it and "initialize" it.  Select it as legacy (seems to have the best compatibility for legacy or UEFI systems).  Then format it with the Quick option as FAT32 and assign a drive letter to it.

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

ilya, you have to launch diskpart under a command prompt with "run as administrator" 

Then, list disk

identify the disk # that correlates to the correct drive

Select disk #

clean

After that exist diskpart and close command prompt.  Go to control panel >>> administrative tools >>> computer management (right-click and "run as administrator) >>> storage >>>> disk management

locate the drive.  locate the partition on it and "initialize" it.  Select it as legacy (seems to have the best compatibility for legacy or UEFI systems).  Then format it with the Quick option as FAT32 and assign a drive letter to it.

OK so I cleaned it with diskpart.

Now the problem is that when I go to disk management, there's no option to initialize the flash drive. There's only one partition on it (all is labelled "Unallocated") and no matter what part of it I right-click, I don't see an option to "initialize."

Also, in case it helps, my computer's BIOS mode is UEFI.
 

Ilya, do you see an option to Format, or to Assign a letter to it?

BrunoC wrote:

Ilya, do you see an option to Format, or to Assign a letter to it?

I see the option to assign a letter, but when I click it, nothing happens. (Whereas if I do that for a different flash drive, a window appears.)

Could it be a defective flash drive? I just bought it.

What options do you see in Disk Management when you right click on the disk. Which options are enabled and which are disabled?

Also, google "initialize disk windows" to see a number of articles. Maybe there is something there that you can match to your situation.

I was able to resolve a similar issue by using MiniTool Partition Wizard Free.

I tried to clean another drive with diskpart and it says:

DiskPart has encountered an error: Access is denied.
See the System Event Log for more information.

Don't know what to do or even where to find the event log.

BrunoC wrote:

What options do you see in Disk Management when you right click on the disk. Which options are enabled and which are disabled?

Also, google "initialize disk windows" to see a number of articles. Maybe there is something there that you can match to your situation.

I was able to resolve a similar issue by using MiniTool Partition Wizard Free.

I see:

Change Drive Letter and Paths (which is not "grayed out" but nothing happens when I click on it)
Eject
Properties
Help

To make the matters worse, as I said, the first option in the list above at least opened a new window in a different flash drive... but when I quick-formatted this other flash drive and then cleaned it with Diskpart, not the window doesn't open...

I'll try to initialize it with some other software.

From the Start key, type Event Viewer. Once you open that, you will just need to look through to see if you can find information. I don't know which event log it would be in. Start by opening up Custom Views and select Administrative Events.

In Disk Management, do you have a New Simple Volume menu option for that disk?

So now I'm basically dealing with mostly the same issue on two (accidentally identical) flash drives.

One of them has this option, the other doesn't (see attached images).

I can't really find anything in the Event Viewer. I think I'll just wipe and initialize both flash drives with the MiniTool Partition Wizard.

In this tool I found out about GPT and MBR. The articles I found online still left me clueless as to which one to use for initializing the flash drive I'll use as the rescue media. How do I know what to choose: GPT or MBR?

Ilya, it looks from the third .png that you should try New Simple Volume for the unallocated drive. Have you done so?

BrunoC wrote:

Ilya, it looks from the third .png that you should try New Simple Volume for the unallocated drive. Have you done so?

 

Not yet, but I finally at least got my computer to recognize the flash drives. Apparently the problem was that I had wiped all the partitions. Now, after I created a single partition in each flash drive, the computer recognizes them as normal flash drives -- I can store stuff on them, etc. 

Is that the solution? Just a single partition?

Also, for this to work as a rescue media, what should I choose as the "file system" of the partition?

Ilya, if you've got the USB drive recognized in WIndows and it has a drive letter, you should be able to just run the Rescue Media Builder and let it take care of everything.

I did it! It's working! Yaaay!

Thank you so much, BrunoC, Bobbo_3C0X1, and Steve! Y'all are awesome.

Edit: I meant that I did everything from start to finish -- migrated my system from the old HDD to the new SSD.

Ilya Yashin

Excellent!  So, just to be sure...

01) You've successfully built the rescue media

02) You've successfully booted the rescue meida

03) In the booted rescue media, you are able to correctly see the source and destination drives?

If so, you are well on your way!

And if you're here now, the next thing to do would be to practice an offline full disk backup of the OS and save it somewhere safe (like an external USB drive). 

Then, and this is the important part of the test, restore the image to A DIFFERENT disk.  Why?  To test your restore, you want to remove the original disk completely, so that you don't mess it up on accident and can put it back when you're done testing without ever impacting it!!!

Put a different disk on the same SATA connector where the original was (this could be a new disk, a spare disk, or an old disk you have lying around - it just needs to be able to connect to the original disk connector port and be large enough to restore your backup image file to). 

Once the restore is done, check the bios boot order and make sure the recovered disk has first boot priority and then try to boot it up.  If it boots and everything appears to be working well, then you know you have a good backup and that you can successfully restore a backup image.  If it doesn't work, then you can do some trouble shooting (like, making sure you booted the rescue media to match how the OS was installed originally - UEFI mode or Legacy mode).  It's best to test this on a spare disk and get used to the process BEFORE you have a situation where you don't have a working computer and have no choice but to try and restore.

And of course, because you are not going to use the original hard drive to do this test on, when you are done, just take out the backup disk, install the original, check the boot order again and boot it up like nothing ever happened in the first place.

 Bobbo_3C0X1,

Sorry for being unclear. By "did it" I meant that I did everything -- built the rescue media, booted up the computer from it, backed up the old HDD, replaced the old HDD with the new SSD, and booted the computer again with the regular Windows start (no rescue media or old HDD or anything like that). The computer seems to be running normally in all regards, with all the files and software and whatnot in right order.

Are there any other checks I should run to make sure that everything is 100% OK?

Ilya Yashin,

Nope, sounds like you did it all.  If you have the original drive, just hold onto it and the backup for awhile... just in case.  Beyond that, if things appear to all be working well, you should be good to go.

The only things I would specifically check at this point are:

1) Licensed software - is it still registered, or does any of it show it is in trial mode and/or needs a key again.  Some software can be really picky if it licensed based on a physical disk UUID or something like that.  Just make sure Windows is activated, MS Office, Adobe, etc to be sure - if you use those types of products.  It's very rare that licenses would stop working after this, but there is a possibility in some instances. 

2) True Image backups in Windows - are they still running OK if you are backing up the OS in Windows too?  If you are backing up this way, but the OS disk backup is not running, you may need to go into the backup task and re-pick the source again (even if it looks the same in the GUI).  If it's working fine though, or if you don't backup this way, no need to do anything here.

Congrats, Ilya! Glad to hear you have accomplished the task.

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

1) Licensed software - is it still registered, or does any of it show it is in trial mode and/or needs a key again.  Some software can be really picky if it licensed based on a physical disk UUID or something like that.  Just make sure Windows is activated, MS Office, Adobe, etc to be sure - if you use those types of products.  It's very rare that licenses would stop working after this, but there is a possibility in some instances.

Just an additional comment on this.  It usually takes a bigger change than a drive change - something like a new motherboard or, less likely, a new cpu - to upset licensed software, but it's a good idea to check.

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

 

Ilya Yashin,

Nope, sounds like you did it all.  If you have the original drive, just hold onto it and the backup for awhile... just in case.  Beyond that, if things appear to all be working well, you should be good to go.

The only things I would specifically check at this point are:

1) Licensed software - is it still registered, or does any of it show it is in trial mode and/or needs a key again.  Some software can be really picky if it licensed based on a physical disk UUID or something like that.  Just make sure Windows is activated, MS Office, Adobe, etc to be sure - if you use those types of products.  It's very rare that licenses would stop working after this, but there is a possibility in some instances. 

2) True Image backups in Windows - are they still running OK if you are backing up the OS in Windows too?  If you are backing up this way, but the OS disk backup is not running, you may need to go into the backup task and re-pick the source again (even if it looks the same in the GUI).  If it's working fine though, or if you don't backup this way, no need to do anything here.

1) I checked MS Office and licensed software -- all are OK.

2) Could you elaborate a bit? I read it several times and don't really get it -- specifically about "backing up the OS in Windows" and the "OS disk backup" running or not running. In case that helps -- I had never used True Image before migrating the HDD to SSD.

Do you do any OS disk backups in the Acronis application under Windows? If so, just make sure it still runs. If not, you may need to re-pick  the source for that task again. That’s all.