Backup full C: drive to a bootable USB drive

TI will make a clone which is a copy of the source drive written to a target drive, in this case your USB drive. Usually intended for use when replacing a HD with a new one. Disadvantage is that you can only have one clone on a drive and TI only clones at the physica disk level which means you can't clone individual partitions.

An image is more or less what it says. It will write an image of your disk or selected partitions to the USB drive. You can have as many as the drive will hold and you can make a Full, Incremental or Differential image. Images normally only include the in-use sectors which saves space. Images can also be compressed and encrypted. Images can also be expanded or contracted to fit resized partitions.  I suggest you read the Acronis TI User Guide as a start or go over to the Wilder's Forum and look for any post by GroverH. There is a link under his signature to his User Guides.

You cannot directly bootup the USB drive if that was your intent. Windows will not boot from a USB drive even if the PC supports booting USB devices. You normally would boot up the TI Rescue CD and use it to locate the image and restore it to your HD. It is imperative that you test the TI rescue CD before you have a serious crash so you know its Linux environment works with your hardware. Absolute best way is to do a test restore to a spare HD in case it doesn't work. It likely will but better to find out now so you can correct any problems rather than when your PC has a dead disk.

With a clone, you could take it out and put it in the PC and boot it up if the PC disk fails. Sounds simpler but IMO it is a bigger pain to maintain up to date than an image.

If you're wanting to create a bootable USB drive that will boot into TI, instructions for several methods are available on my website.

I'm using True Image Home 2009. It has a utility "Create bootable rescue media". Is my task as simple as (1) creating a bootable USB Drive or DVD, (2) creating an image or clone, (3) testing the bootable drive, and (4) testing the restore - to another harddrive?

If so, two questions: (A) which is preferable for the bootable drive - usb or dvd?, and (B) which backup is preferable to restore, an image or clone? (I'm assuming that TI Home 2009's backup my computer creates an image, but there is also the utility to create a system volume backup. Confusing.

Just as a reality check, I want to send the computer in for servicing. I want to image my drive, format it before servicing, then restore the image when it is returned.

Thanks.

You can create a TI CD, a bootable flashdrive or an ISO file (for burning to a CD). TI won't directly create a bootable USB hard drive.

I would create the TI CD, boot it and make sure it works properly and sees all your drives. Make a backup image of the entire drive and then validate it (do this from the TI CD). The next test (the real test) is to do a restore. This can be back to the original (risky if you're not sure it will work) or to a new drive (safer).

If you create a backup image of the entire drive, you don't need the System State backup. Everything will already be in the image.

Robert Perkins wrote:

I'm using True Image Home 2009. It has a utility "Create bootable rescue media". Is my task as simple as (1) creating a bootable USB Drive or DVD, (2) creating an image or clone, (3) testing the bootable drive, and (4) testing the restore - to another harddrive?

If so, two questions: (A) which is preferable for the bootable drive - usb or dvd?, and (B) which backup is preferable to restore, an image or clone? (I'm assuming that TI Home 2009's backup my computer creates an image, but there is also the utility to create a system volume backup. Confusing.

Just as a reality check, I want to send the computer in for servicing. I want to image my drive, format it before servicing, then restore the image when it is returned.

Thanks.

The bootable rescue media that you create is a CD that has the Linux rescue environment on it. It is capable of booting up and creating/restoring an image to a HD such as a new one because the old one failed. If you made a clone you don't use this CD, you just put the clone in the machine since it has a copy of the failed drive on it.  Imaging is intended for making backups, clones for replacing an old HD with a new HD but an image either can  be use to replace a HD or fulfill the backup function.  I agree the system volume backup is a source of confusion. If you have your drive backed up via an image or a clone there is no need to be concerned about the system volume backup.

I trust your need to service the PC is something rather trivial. I wouldn't want to rely on an image or clone done on a flakey system as being my only way to restore a repaired PC. As I always say, take the most care with your important personal data files. These cannot be replaced at any cost if they are lost. The OS and apps aren't in this category.

I am having a problem doing the backup. I created the bootable disk and rebooted to it successfully, but when I ran the backup disk software from the disk (in Linux) and selected the attached USB drive, it said the disk could not be written to. There is nothing wrong with the disk. I'm running Vista. BTW, no major problems with the computer - just a busted CD drive cover that needs replacing.

Hello Robert,

Thank you for using Acronis Products

Please download ISO image from your account under Registered Products and create Acronis bootable disc using third-party software. ISO image is based on different loader which has more embedded drivers, it will certainly solve the issue you experience. If not please let us know.

I deleted the files on the USB drive, ran chkdsk, rebooted and tried again. It worked this time. Strange thing was it was a brand new drive. Thanks for everything.

Forgive me for probably asking a question already answered, but I don't really know what to search for. I want to backup my full C drive to a USB drive so that if there is a crash, I can boot to the USB drive and quickly recover. I have the latest version of True Image. What are my options, including cloning.

NORBERT MANCUSO wrote:

Forgive me for probably asking a question already answered, but I don't really know what to search for. I want to backup my full C drive to a USB drive so that if there is a crash, I can boot to the USB drive and quickly recover. I have the latest version of True Image. What are my options, including cloning.

You should start a new topic. But the answers to your question are in the stickies up top. Note: You cannot boot Windows from a USB drive.

My external USB Back-up drive is full. Should I delete and re-format the drive and start Acronis from scratch?

Also, I just purchased Acronis 2010. Should I install it now, of wait for a resolution to my first problem; a back up drive that is fill?

Thank you for your help.

Bruce

Bruce Adler wrote:

My external USB Back-up drive is full. Should I delete and re-format the drive and start Acronis from scratch?

Also, I just purchased Acronis 2010. Should I install it now, of wait for a resolution to my first problem; a back up drive that is fill?

Thank you for your help.

Bruce

It's entirely up to you whether you want to keep any of those Backups or not.

I have bot 9.0 and 2009. I used to be able to clone from a larger sixe source drive to a smaller size destination drive. Recently hawever Neither product will clone from a 120 GB source to an 80GB destination as an example. I only have about 13 GB of XP on the source drive. What has happened?

Lonnie:

Check your disks for errors by running chkdsk /r on both disks. If there are file system errors, TI will revert to sector by sector mode and will not allow resizing when cloning.

Have done that many times with no results. I have re-formated at least 5 disks and tried each one. It looks like Windows is doing someting that is spreading Windows over the entire disk partition. I have tried to cut the partition down on the source disk using Partition Magic with no results. Have you ever ran into a problem such as this? I have re-installed both Acronis True Image products with no results. Let me know how to use Acronis to split partions. Maybe that will work.

Lonnie:

Formatting is not required before cloning - TI operates at the cluster level and will re-write directly to clusters on the target disk. If the 13 GB Windows partition is spread out across your 120 GB source disk, that shouldn't matter either. When TI clones, unless you are working in sector by sector mode, it will pack the clusters on the target disk similar to what happens after defragmenting the disk.

There may be other ways to accomplish this task. First, could you describe the contents of the source disk? How many partitions and what is in each? If possible, post a screen shot from Windows Disk Management that shows the layout of your 120 GB source disk.

Next, if you have multiple drives available for a test, create an image of your 120 GB source disk and save it to a .tib file. How large is the resulting .tib file?