Skip to main content

How do I create rescue media on a 500GB USB HDD?

Thread needs solution

Running Acronis True Image Home 2011. I can successfully create rescue media on USB flash memory, but not onto a USB hard drive.

I've formatted the drive FAT32, NTFS and FAT, with partitions from 512MB to 500GB.

I'm never given the option to use the USB HDD as the target for the recovery media?

Is this possible, either officially or through a hack?

I'd like to keep my rescue software and images on the same drive if possible.

Thanks!

0 Users found this helpful

I don't know if there is a soluion for this. You can look at BartPE or WinPE. I know there are tutorials for creating a bootable USB drive. However, I don't know if it's possible to keep your back up images on the same disk..... Maybe on a second partition?

I used the setup you describe about 10 yrs ago with Norton Ghost. I used a NetBoot Disk to start my machine, then ran GHOST from a directory on my network resource.... and saved the images to the same location. BartPE or WinPE may be viable options with 2011.

Tool that might help

WinPE for 2013 if you want to go this route

Grub4Dos could be a solution. The usb disk could be Grub4Dos bootable and have the TrueImage iso stored there as well.

With this, when the next build of 2013 is released, just copy the new build iso file to the 500 update your menu so the build is listed as a choice. Very easy to so.

http://www.themudcrab.com/acronis_grub4dos.php

My solution has four stages :

First, run the recue media builder of Acronis TI on a small flash drive formated in fat32 (at least 2GB in size). This will load Acronis TI on it.
Secondly, with a partition tool, like Acronis Disk director or Gparted or ..... ,prepare the USB HDD with the first partition in fat32 with a size of 2GB, this partition must be a primary and an active partition.
Thirtly, on the HDD create a logical partition of the max size to fit in the free space.
To end, with Acronis Disk Director copy the partition of the small flash drive to the first partition of the USB HDD.

This is done.

Now, you can boot Acronis TI from the USB HDD, and then create backup on the logical partition.
By using an USB3 solution (port and USB HDD), the boot of Acronis TI is very fast.

Thierry