Survival Kit Creation
I am trying to create a new survival kit, however under my destination box, there is nothing that appears in order to create the Create Survival Kit text, does not appear. Am I doing something wrong that will not allow me to create the survival kit? The link I am using for review is: https://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/true-image-features/survival-kit/


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Steve, thank you for the info. It does give me the option of backing up the entire PC, but that would include both my main drive & secondary drive. In the previous versions of Acronis I could just backup my main drive, operating system, applications, etc. Can I do that instead? I would prefer that since my main drive is much smaller. The other drive I have backed up separately.
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Michael, if you click through on the Source panel then pick Disks & Partitions, you can then select only your smaller main drive instead of both drives in your PC. (This is what I do myself for my NVMe SSD drive with the OS, ignoring my 1TB HDD drive used for data etc.).
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Thank you, I believe I got this all setup now. My main SSD drive with the OS is now checked, which includes System Reserve, Recovery Partition, & C Drive.
Is there a way of testing it?
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Michael, if you have configured your main SSD drive for a Disks & Partitions backup, then you should see an option to create a survival kit when you select a suitable Destination drive that could be used for this purpose.
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Also keep in mind that you need a compatible USB drive to create the survival kit on. An "external hard disk drive" is the kind that could also be plugged into your computer motherboard and shows up as a "fixed disk" in disk management, even when attached by USB. A "USB flash drive" is a portable "thumb" drive, that shows up as a "removable" drive and only connects to a USB port. What are you trying to create the survival kit on, how much free (and usable space) is on it and what is the file system of it?
https://kb.acronis.com/content/61639
Acronis Survival Kit can be created on external hard disk drive connected via USB with at least 32 GB of free space. Starting from Acronis True Image 2019 Update 2 (Build 14610) it is also possible to create Acronis Survival Kit on 32 GB or bigger USB flash drive (this option is only available under Windows 10 Build 1703 or more recent versions)
Supported file systems on external HDD for Acronis Survival Kit creation:
Windows version:
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- NTFS
- FAT32
- exFAT
- If the drive has another file system, Acronis True Image suggests formatting the drive.
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Please check out this thread too. Finding that my sandisk ultra fit usb 3.1 (64GB drives) are duds that "write protect themselves" quite easily.
Because of their "security" feature, it is causing the survival kit to fail every time when using these particular flash drives.
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@Steve thank you for the help. I tried again & I do not have the survival kit options. Any reason why? I selected my C: from the disks & partition option, but do not have the survival kit showing.
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Michael, I believe the issue here is your destination drive and how it is connected to your computer as shown in the icon used for this in your scenario.
Note the difference for my working scenario using an external USB drive.
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I just did a test.
In order to create a survival kit - the USB drives need to be selected directly from the list of options after you click on "destination". That creates the icon shown by Steve, and the option to create a survival kit.
Instead, if you select "browse" and then navigate to a specific partition on the drive, you get the icon that Michael is seeing and you do not get the option to create a survival kit.
Michael,
What are your options when picking the destination initially? The USB drive should already be there and you pick it from there.
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Thanks for this info. I am not entirely sure why that would be the case. The drive that is connected is an external drive thru USB, that has nothing on it. It originally did have an Acronis file on it, but I removed that.
I deleted my backup, started over, and still have the same issue where it doesn't show the survival kit option.
@Bobbo, thanks just seeing your suggestions popping up on the forum now. I am going to look at those as well. My drive does show up immediately after clicking destination, without clicking browser. So maybe this particular drive is not formatted properly for the survival kit.
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Maybe I'm missing something here, but I thought that destination "A" icon was the icon for a Survival Kit. In other words, ATI already thinks there is a Survival Kit on that drive. Do you know for a fact that you do not have a Survival Kit?
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@Patrick, I don't currently on that drive. I did at one point. I will format the drive to see if Acronis thinks there is one.
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Same issue after quick formatting the drive. The only difference is I have 296 GB free now instead of 294.9 GB in the above screen capture. Not sure what the issue is I have created survival kits in the past in 2019. Running Acronis 2020 currently.
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Ok, more testing - it seems to depend on the drive i use - flash drive I was using was not very "friendly" with partitioning.
I've switched to a Samsung EVO SSD and a USB 3.0 adapter and it's playing nicer.
Michael, can you grab the free version of either Minitool Partition Wizard or Aomei Partition Wizard and take a screenshot of your your drive? I am wondering if you still have a rescue media partition on the drive, or not.
In my last test, I created a new survival kit (via a new backup task). It created the survival kit as expected. Then, I used a partitioning tool and noted the hidden "Acronis HM" partition - also to be expected as this is the survival kit boot partition. I mounted it with a volume letter so it is viewable in Windows, closed Acronis and restarted it. I created a new backup and picked the destination and I get the same results as you - can't create a new one. That is to be expected here since a Survival Kit partition is recognized by True Image. So, possibly, evce though you quick formatted, it was just the main partition and did not wipe out the old survival kit partition. That would prevent you from being able to create it again.
Second thing to note and I've experienced it before, but couldn't pin how it happened until today. After mounting the hidden "Acronis HM" partition, I renamed it. I then closed True Image, restarted it and created a new backup task, selecting the USB drive as I had done before. This time, it did let me create the survival kit again. Apparently, the application is looking for "Acronis HM" partition to determine if the survival kit exists already - but perhaps it is not checking to see if the actual files are there to prompt to recreate it (not sure). Either way, long story short, check to see if it's there and if it is, you need to get rid of it or rename it so it can be rebuilt.
And last note... if the old partition is there and you don't reclaim the space back, the next time you create a survival kit, it will just make a new 2GB partition next to the old one. That is how I ended up with more than one just now and both of them are bootable and working.
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@Bobbo, you were spot on, thank you for the help. When I opened MiniTool Partition Wizard, I saw that Acronis had a 2GB partition on the drive that my computer was not seeing but MiniTool Partition did. Immediately after deleting that partition on the drive, allocating that space to the rest of the drive, & formatting the drive, I went back into Acronis.
That gave me the option to create the survival kit which is currently running. I will keep that in mind in the future, as I like to run new updated survival kits from time to time.
I took a screen capture, but don't believe you need it now since it showed exactly what you stated. If you do need it posted, I can certainly do that.
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Michael, Thanks for confirming! Yeah, I don't know how True Image handles the exact check for the partitions, but I'm hoping that:
1) Users will eventually get the option to create a survival kit, without having to setup an actual backup first. Some kind of button or option to build it under the rescue media builder would be my preference
2) Better detection of the existing partitions - look for the default True Image name and also look for other markers in the files created on it as a backup. If detected, still allow the user to update/rebuild the existing partition at any time, but prompt if an existing one is found and what version that is so they can choose if they need/want to continue to change the version or rebuild it anyway.
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