How to Create a Bootable Rescue USB HDD

I've been using True Image for many years now. Thank you Acronis for making a great product!

My laptop can boot off of an external USB hard disk. I wanted to know if anyone has been able to create a small partition on an external USB hard drive that boots into the standalone TI rescue environment?

Why would anyone want to do this? Because I travel a lot and I can carry around an image of my laptop on a very portable USB external hard drive at all times. I've had to reimage on the road more than once. My laptop doesn't have an internal drive, so I can't carry a bootable CD. I've succeeded in easily creating a bootable USB flash key (thanks, Acronis) that helps me accomplish this task, but I'd still prefer to have a "one device solution."

 

Hello SeattleKen,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

I'm afraid that the current version of Acronis True Image does not support the creation of bootable rescue external USB hard drive at this moment.
However, you can connect your external USB hard drive to the laptop in order to create Acronis Secure Zone on it. After Acronis Startup Recovery Manager activation, your external USB hard drive will be a bootable one.

Please be aware that if you activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager and then for some reason disconnect the external drive Acronis Secure Zone resides on, your computer may boot with a long delay or not boot at all. You will need to either reconnect the drive with Acronis Secure Zone or fix the master boot record (MBR).
Please take a look at the respective FAQ.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

If you have room on the external HD or if you can remove that one for another, how about installing Windows plus Acronis TI on it. Then you would be able to run TI once the Windows on the external boots up.

Or how about getting an external usb CD drive?