Does rescue media contain the whole image of the CURRENT primary partition?

Or just part of it?

 

In "Acronis speak" rescue media is usually taken to mean the rescue CD which is used to boot the computer into the rescue environment.

It is the BACKUP media which contains the backup images. These can contain the whole of a drive or part of it, it is the user's choice as to what is included.

Xpilot

 

Rescue Media means just that - a utility that may help you rescue a disasterous situation.

Typically Rescue Media contain sufficient code to get a system started and to perform some low-level tasks that may enable the user to perform some basic repairs that hopefully will get the system operational.

To answer your question - No, the rescue media does not contain anything from the current primary partition.

 

You can store a backup image on an Acronis bootable CD is that is what you are after.