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Bootable media -- usb thumb or flash card

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My son has a small NetBook that he uses when traveling -- (airline pilot) -- for email, internet activity, checking flight schedules, some photo stroage, etc., during his layovers. He finds the small NetBook more convenient to pack and carry than a full size laptop.

The problem:
The NetBook has no optical drive! It does have USB2 ports, and a slot for SD cards. Therefore, these would have to be used for storing external backup files, as well as for creation of "boot media". In searching the Acronis site, I can find instructions to create bootable flash media for WinVista, WinXP, Linux, etc, but no mention of Win7. My question is: will the WinVista procedure work for Win7??

Also, what are other users experience using ATI2010 in this type situation? I would guess using a SD card for .tib files, and a usb thumb drive for booting ATI, if the hard drive is lost. Obviously, to loose the disk drive in this invironment is of less concern than loosing a drive in a system where much more important data is handled, but still, just to reload the operating system........!!!

Thanks for any advice ... Bob

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Bob:

You can create a bootable USB flash drive on any PC using any operating system that will run TI. When the netbook boots from the recovery version of TI, the operating system installed on the netbook is immaterial. TI runs its own operating system (Linux) in the boot environment.

The .tib files need to be stored somewhere that is accessible by the recovery version of TI, so before committing to using SD cards, boot the netbook from your recovery flash drive and make sure that it can access the SD card. If the USB flash drive is large enough, you could also store your .tib files on it. The recovery environment is fairly small. It used to be 35 MB in older TI versions; not sure how large it is with TI 2010, but there should be plenty of room left on an 8 GB or larger flash drive.

K0LO, Thanks for the info -- Sorry for the delay in responding, I have been away..

I understand what you're saying. I created a bootable USB thumb drive on my desktop (home built, ASUS P6T mb, i7 processor, Win7 64bit) and it boots great on that same machine. However, I haven't been able to test it on MY laptop because I can find no way in the BIOS to select a USB boot device, I guess due to the OLD AGE of the laptop. Have not yet had a chance to test on my son's NetBook described in my first post, but from your info above, I am sure it will work.

I had purchased the NetBook for my son as an early Christmas, to meet his requirements discribed in my first post. Now, I wish to either provide him with (or recommend his purchase of) Acronis True Image. The reason for this thread is, as stated, the lack of a CD/DVD drive on the NetBook, which means he will need bootable flash media and USB external drive for backup.

One last question:
I now notice (don't know why I didn't see it before) a version of ATI designated as "NetBook version". How does it differ from the ATI2010 that I use, and would it be better for his purpose than the regular ATI?? My concern would be any limitations it may have!

Thanks again --- I'm learning!!
Bob

Bob:

The NetBook version of TI is something new. I have no experience with it, but understand that it has a subset of the feature set of TrueImage, and costs less. Judging by the forum posts, there are some netbooks that do not have hardware support in the Linux boot environment, but that's the same issue that the full version of TI has. Before purchasing I would try booting your son's netbook with your existing flash drive and making sure that the regular TI version will work for him. Then you could download the trial version of the netbook edition and try the same test. The outcome of these tests may help you make your decision.

I also have a P6T. However, I can not get it to boot from a USB thumb drive made with Acronis Backup and Recovery. When I try to boot from the USB thumb drive, I get the message: No OS found. I have BIOS version 07/07.

I'd appreciate it if you tell me what BIOS version you are using and the BIOS settings related to USB.

Hello Joe,

Thank you for posting your question, I will be happy to help. 
Most probably, Acronis Bootable Media has been created improperly. Try to perform the below steps to fix the issue:
1) Format the USB stick with the internal Disk Management utility   (Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management). After that recreate Acronis Bootable Media.
or
2) Shut down the computer, plug the USB stick and start the system. After that  recreate 
Acronis Bootable Media.
These operations should help the system to detect the USB stick as a disk (not as a removable media).

If this doesn't help, please use SYSLINUX to make the the USB flash drive bootable, please see this article on how to do it. 
Please let us know the results, we should be sure that the program runs flawlessly. If the provided information is not clear or if you have any other question do not hesitate to post them and we will be glad to answer.
Thank you.

FYI, I have similar issues, but I found the problem is related more to the hardware, not ATI or the thumb drive. I created a bootable thumb drive, it booted on some machines and not others. I then used an SD card instead, all the machines. including my Toshiba NB-205 series NetBook. BTW, Toshiba referrers to their NB-205 series as a mini-laptop instead of a netbook. Good reason, same size as a NetBook with 9 hour battery life, yet it runs everything I throw at it. All versions of ATI from V9 through 2010 work perfect on it as well as Wn XP, Win7 and all the high power applications I have for my tower.

Opa:

Forum MVP MudCrab has written a guide about that very topic. You can find it here: http://www.themudcrab.com/acronis_grub4dos.php

Kolo - Mark,

Thanks for the link, this worked perfectly. I now have several bootable HDs with the .ISOs for all of my versions of TI.

Opa,
If you really want to complement your bootable ISO's with some additional files, consider adding Mustang's PEBuilder listed in my guides. I have my thumbdrive and several usb drives plus one internal drive all set on Grub4Dos. My boot menu includes all the past version of TrueImage plus Mustang's PEBuuilder for 2010. On Mustang's menu, I have added TI 2010 plus a text editor plus an image program for screen capture.