Using Acronis TI to backup and restore USB Flash Drives.

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by MorJo15, May 23, 2006.

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  1. MorJo15

    MorJo15 Registered Member

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    I was curious if anyone is aware of how to use Acronis TI to backup and restore USB Flash Drives. What I have is a bootable USB flash disk that I want to backup, and restore in the event the flash becomes damaged. I have tried to other backup utilities, but the bootable function no longer works after being restored.

    I have not seen anywhere that Acronis allows the backup of removable devices. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

    TIA

    Jon Morlan
     
  2. Chutsman

    Chutsman Registered Member

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    I take it that you do not want to simply copy the contents of the flash drive to a hard drive? How big a flash drive is it?
     
  3. MorJo15

    MorJo15 Registered Member

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    The flash drive is only 128mb, 64mb used. It's not that I don’t want to copy the files, the problem is when you do that, then copy them back the USB flash it is no longer bootable. My guess is that it is creating some sort of boot sector on the flash drive. If I could use Acronis to backup such a device, this should be preserved as it is on a standard HDD.

    For example, if you go into the TI media builder and build a bootable disk (create the acronis loader on a USB flash) on a flash drive you will find that this works, but backing up and restoring the flash drive is next to impossible while keeping the flash drive bootable. This is the problem that I'm running into.

    One other thing; as a side note, creating the acronis bootable media on a flash drive, verses bootable CD's Rocks.

    Jon Morlan
     
  4. Chutsman

    Chutsman Registered Member

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    I kinda suspected that ..... that the bootablity will be lost. But isn't it easy to re-do the boot part then just add back the regular files?

    Putting the Acronis boot media on the flash is neat ... I must try it one day.
     
  5. MorJo15

    MorJo15 Registered Member

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    Yep,

    I can easily make the drive bootable again, but at some point it begins to be a pain. My goal is to have a few flash drives, each with a specific purpose, but until I find a way to back these up in a way that is as easy as using TI on a HDD, I'm kinda stuck.

    If I could get this problem ironed out, it would be nice to carry one flash drive with a collection of flash drive images, and just restore the one that I would need at the time.

    Acronis Support:: This would be a really valuable enhancement or a new product idea!!! True Image for removable media. With the size of these flash devices getting bigger and bigger there is going to be a need for backing them up.

    Jon
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2006
  6. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Jon,

    Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    If your removable USB Flash Drives are recognized by Windows as Hard drive, you can back up and restore them without any problems.

    If your removable USB Flash Drives are recognized by Windows as removable ones, Acronis True Image can't back up and restore them.

    Please download Acronis True Image 9.0 trial version at http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/ in order to check how the product works.

    If you want us to change the behaviour of Acronis True Image in any way or add some new features to this product, please feel free to post any of your suggestions in Acronis True Image WISH-LIST thread.

    Thank you.
    --
    Tatyana Tsyngaeva
     
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