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I never knew it could do this so now I hope it works.

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I have been looking for more disk imaging programs that don't require installation. Either the programs runs entirely in RAM or you can create an image just using the boot disk. I have come across Redo Backup and something else called Drive SnapShot.

Earlier tonight I stuck my Acronis Boot Disk in my optical drive and booted from it just to see if I could in fact make an image of my system without actually having Acronis installed. It appears to have worked.

I haven't yet tried to restore the image, but so far so good. I wasn't aware Acronis could do this. If it restores successfully, I will like Acronis even more.

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Hi 357mag.  Absolutely.  Acronis can do a full disk image, clone and/or restore completely with the offline bootable recovery media.  It's not automated, but I personally believe these are the best/most reliable backups since they occur while the disk is idle and completely outside of the Operating System where other applications, malware and/or even AV can interfere with Microsoft Volume Shadow Service which is needed to "snapshot" the hard drive when it is in use.  

FYI, when you do a restore, just try to boot the recovery media in the same manner as the OS was insalled for best results (if OS is legacy/mbr, boot the recovery media in legacy/mbr and if the OS is UEFI/GPT then boot the recovery media in UEFI mode).

Here's an example of a system bios that has both options and how you can tell which mode you've booted the recocery media in.

https://forum.acronis.com/forum/121829#comment-378318