Where is the actual Acronis Survival Kit located on my external drive?
Howdy,
I just downloaded and installed Acronis TI 2019 today and ran my first full backup after I thought I had installed the Acronis Survival Kit.
However, when I go to my external drive after Acronis tells me by backup was successful I can find no trace of anything close that is listed as Survival Kit. My successful backup is all that is listed.
Is the Survival Kit actually included in the backup? Or, is it supposed to be listed by itself?
Any information or guidance would be greatly appreciated by this 76 year old brain housing group ….lol
Thanks and regards,
2harts4ever
See screenshot below:
Hi Steve Smith and Enchantech,
I appreciate both of your responses. When I went to Disk Management I couldn't find anything labeled Survival Kit but I did see a 2 GB partition on my external drive. It says Healthy (Active, Primary Partition) Could the Survival Kit be inside that partition?
I would post a copy of the Disk Management but doing that is over my head too...lol
Thanks and regards,
2harts4ever
When I went to Disk Management I couldn't find anything labeled Survival Kit but I did see a 2 GB partition on my external drive. It says Healthy (Active, Primary Partition) Could the Survival Kit be inside that partition?
You will only see a partition labelled as 'Survival Kit' if you have given it that name, as Enchantech has done.
Otherwise, the 'survival kit' aka the Acronis bootable Rescue Media is held in the 2GB FAT32 partition, and the rest of the drive space is your storage space for backups.
For one of my drives, it shows as shown in the screen shot below from Disk Management.
The above shows that I have the WinPE version of the rescue media in my 2GB FAT32 partition, but the label is one that I have given it, as is the drive letter N: - I use the rest of this drive for doing backups.
Hi Steve,
My 2 GB partition in my External drive has no drive letter.
That being said I have always made full backups with past Acronis TIs and would like to continue doing it with TI 2019. I have always kept them in a folder called 'Acronis Backups on my External. This is also the same folder I put my first TI 2019 Full backup into.
Am I correct in assuming the Survival Kit is now included in my Acronis Backup folder or is it in another hidden partition of its own and that is where I should have put the first full backup?
If the Survival Kit is in a hidden, unlettered partition how to I know where to send my full backups I do at least once a month?
I appreciate your patience.
Thanks and regards,
2harts4ever
Am I correct in assuming the Survival Kit is now included in my Acronis Backup folder or is it in another hidden partition of its own and that is where I should have put the first full backup?
No, as I have said earlier, the 'Survival Kit' is the same as the Acronis Rescue Media. It is totally separate from your Acronis Backup folder and cannot reside on a NTFS partition, hence it is created on the hidden FAT32 partition. This hidden partition will only have a drive letter assigned if you specifically allocate one via Disk Management - I do this in order to update my boot partition using the MVP Custom ATIPE Builder script.
If the Survival Kit is in a hidden, unlettered partition how to I know where to send my full backups I do at least once a month?
You do not send your backups to the Survival Kit partition, it is too small for a start, but think of it like you would the Acronis Rescue Media on a small USB stick or CD/DVD - it has one purpose only, to launch the standalone Acronis application by booting your computer even when there is no Windows OS present. Your backups go to your backup folder on the external drive as normal.
Hi Steve,
I follow what you are saying, but, if I ever need to use my Acronis backup, how do I find this special hidden Survival Kit partition when I fire up my External to start the recovery operation?
Thanks and regards,
2harts4ever
2harts4ever,
The 2GB partition is a hidden partition as you say. The "Labeled" notation in my screenshot is my own doing, I am very organized, sorry for the confusion. In Steve's screenshot where his shows a Drive name "Toshiba" this is either that he named it that or by default in shows as that.
In Steve's screenshot you will note the first partition has a drive letter as well whereas mine does not. This is because Steve has a Home brewed Survival Kit and mine is/was created by the True Image Survival Kit feature.
True Image will only show your second (lettered) partition so will store backups to that partition. Having a folder there to keep them in is fine.
if I ever need to use my Acronis backup, how do I find this special hidden Survival Kit partition when I fire up my External to start the recovery operation?
You would have the external drive connected to your computer, then in the Boot options menu, should select to boot from the Survival Kit partition available from the external drive. The best suggestion here would be to give this a try and see for yourself.
2harts4ever, ,
The idea of the Survival kit is to have the ability to boot to the external drive in the case of a complete disk failure, and use the Recovery Media on the drive in the hidden partition to restore a backup stored in the second partition on that drive.
I recommend that you make certain that you can boot to the external drive so that you are confident it works.
Steve and Enchantech,
Enchantech: I will give this a try after I have done some serious research on how to actually change the BIOS to do just that.
Steve: Final question (I hope ….lol). On previous Acronis TI versions I would normally save three or four Entire PC backups and then delete the oldest two in my Acronis Backup folder on my External Drive. Now since TI 2019 has this special Survival Kit partition can I still do this with the two oldest Entire PC backups without messing up my Survival Kit?
Thanks and regards,
2harts4ever
It will have no impact on the survival kit. If you manually delete the backups you should run validation to update the Acronis data base - just click on ignore when errors for missing backups appear. (My recollection is that the Survival Kit, like the recovery media does not use this index.)
Ian
Ian and all others,
I appreciate your response. And, now I think I have a much better understanding of the Survival Kit and its makeup.
Thanks and regards,
2harts4ever