Use the rest of the space on Rescue Media USB stick
I have just started using Acronis True Image 2019 after decades of using desktops and then laptops without ever having needed to use a backup and usually being too hard up to afford the extra HDD to put the backups on, but now deciding that I've probably pushed my luck too far and finally having managed to get the file storage space.
I've tried to read all the documentation, think I get most of it, but have one probably very stupid question (disability and the side-effects of medication give me a poor memory, and poor ability to think clearly).
I have started two backup schedules: one for my whole PC, including the SSD and HD in the laptop: and one a file-and-folder backup for the content I keep on an external 4TB USB HD. Both schedules are creating the backups on a separate eternal 6TB USB HD.
I've also used Rescue Media Builder to create a bootable 32GB USB stick. On reflection, I probably should have created the Acronis Survival Kit on the 6TB USB drive first, but was confused by a statement somewhere in the documentation that external USB drives (rather than sticks) couldn't be booted from. Ticking the option to create the Survival kit on that drive now, it says it needs to re-format it first, which would destroy my initial backups, and as it took over 22 hours to do the initial full backup of the selected files and folders on the 4 TB, I don't fancy sitting through that again now. If it's needed, the rescue kit on the USB stick should do.
But ... the stupid question: the rescue kit on the bootable USB stick takes up only 659 MB on the 32 GB USB stick. Can I just save other things on there as well, or will saving some random mix of other files onto the stick muck up the boot-and-rescue function?
Thanks.
Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about the reformatting if the rescue media on the stick is updated. I've got a couple of 4GB sticks around somewhere, so I'll use one of those. Thanks.
I'm happy enough with the separate rescue media on a stick alongside the actual backups on the HDD, but I'm still a bit puzzled, though, about the Create Survival Kit wanting to reformat the 6TB USB drive. Disk Management says it is NTFS and a GPT partition, currently 57% free, and has a non-greyed out option to shrink the size of the only partition. I thought the partition could be resized smaller to allow creating the Survival Kit partition without reformatting the whole thing and wiping the backups currently taking up the 43% used. But despite using computers since the mid-80s I've almost never had a reason to change anything about partitions other then the odd change of drive letter, so I must have understood this wrong. Or is it just that the Acronis create Survival kit can't shrink the existing partition to then create its own partition in the freed space whereas Disk Management can?
The system disk (an SSD) is also GPT and has an EFI system partition, so I'm presuming it's booting in UEFI mode, not BIOS. (This is a 2018 Dell laptop I bought not that long ago; I still haven't understood - or even found - a lot of the new things as compared with the 2010 Windows 7 MSI laptop I was using up until buying the new Dell.) I just accepted the recommended options when creating the rescue media on the USB stick, and it recommended and created the WinRE based one, if that means anything.
David, difficult to say why the Survival Kit should want to format your 6TB drive if both it and your OS drive both are already in GPT format.
Personally, I would not bother with taking that route via the Survival Kit option. If you want to achieve the same option of having a bootable partition on the 6TB drive, then it is easy to do this for yourself.
Download a copy of the free MiniTool Partition Wizard software, install this then use it to create a small 2GB FAT32 partition at the start of your 6TB drive by moving the start of the current partition on the drive by that amount. Once the new partition is created, give it a drive letter.
Now you can simply use the same rescue media tool used for your USB stick and just point it to the new 2GB FAT32 partition drive letter.
I have done the above on several of my drives though I prefer to use the MVP Custom ATI PE builder tool to create the rescue media, giving that the drive letter of the partition.
Thanks very much for this. MiniTool Partition Wizard looks like a useful tool to have (though I'm not keen on the installer's sneaky attempt to install Avast - good thing I usually read the tiny print pre-checked options - or its attempt to change my browser settings, stopped by Comodo's Browser protection feature).
Just one more question, if I may. In MiniTool Partition Wizard, my 6TB USB drive is showing as having an unnamed, unlettered 'Other' 128MB partition at the beginning, showing as 100% used, before the R: partition that is all the rest of the space in which my current backups are saved. Does it matter if the created 2GB FAT32 partition (which I haven't created yet) is before or after this mystery 'Other' partition?
It shouldn't matter. You could even create it at the end of the disk if you prefer. The MSR is really only needed for Windows installations on a GPT formatted disk.
https://www.disk-partition.com/articles/gpt-reserved-partition-128mb.html
Right.
Thanks again for your help.
You're welcome DavidGB !