Installing True Image to external, removable hard drive

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by joey2264, May 30, 2007.

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  1. joey2264

    joey2264 Registered Member

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    Very simple question, but I haven't seen it specifically addressed anywhere. How do I install True Image Home to an external hard drive so I can just start it and mount and restore from any computer.

    I want to image my hard drive, then wipe it, put a fresh copy of Windows XP on it, and then be able to mount and possibly restore specific files on the fresh volume. Now that I think about it, I guess I could just reinstall True Image after I install Windows, but I'd rather be able to use True Image from the external hard disk without having to worry about installing True Image on my computer.
     
  2. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    That is what the bootable Rescue CD is for. It has the basic Backup, Recovery, and Clone functions of the software. You can make the CD after installing the software.
     
  3. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    If your computer will boot from a USB Flash Drive you can also create one of those with the Acronis Media Builder program.
     
  4. farmerlee

    farmerlee Registered Member

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    A bootable flashdrive is the easiest way imo. If you have a large enough flashdrive you can use that to backup onto, thats what i do.
     
  5. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    I'm sure the license does not allow using it on more than one machine except that the recovery cd can be used on more than one -- presumably to move an image from one machine to another. To use the program from the recovery CD, don't need to install regiastry settings. Otherwise, you would need all the registry settings installed on each machine, which would require an installation on each -- ergo multiple licenses.


     
  6. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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  7. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello joey2264,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Please note that Acronis True Image, like most of the applications, uses Windows registry and Windows system folders during the installation. In other words, the installation is associated with the operating system.

    The best way to achieve your goal is to follow other Forum members advice and use Acronis True Image Bootable Media created on CD\DVD disc, several formatted diskettes (the wizard will tell you the exact number), or any other media your computer can boot from. You can find the detailed instructions on how create bootable media in chapter 10 in the Acronis True Image 10.0 Home User's Guide.

    Acronis True Image Bootable Rescue CD is Linux based and has it's own assortment of drivers for the wide variety of modern hardware. In other words, it does not depend on the hardware configuration of the system it was created on.

    Please also be aware that according to Acronis software licensing policy, you should purchase one copy of Acronis program per every computer where it will be used. This also applies to Acronis True Image Bootable Media.

    Thank you.
    --
    Aleksandr Isakov
     
  8. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    joey2264,

    I've been messing with this procedure more lately since there have been several recent posts regarding booting the Acronis programs off of an external USB hard drive.

    What I've just tried is very easy to do and may work for you. I used TI 10 build 4,942 on Windows XP Pro SP2.

    1. Use a usb flash drive (the one I used was 1GB) and format it to FAT32 (FAT/FAT16 may also work)
    2. Use the Acronis Media Builder program, select the flash drive from the list of available devices and the program will make it bootable and add the rescue media
    3. With the flash drive still plugged in, start TI and create a full drive backup image of the flash drive
    4. Remove the flash drive
    5. Plug in the usb hard drive
    6. Restore the entire flash drive image file to the usb hard drive (check the "Disk #" checkbox). IMPORTANT NOTE: This will erase all data on the usb hard drive. Make sure it's empty already or you have backups on any important files.
    7. The hard drive should now have a small FAT32 primary/active bootable partition on it
    8. Using DD or Windows Disk Management, create an NTFS partition in the unallocated space
    9. You should now be able to boot from the usb hard drive and use the second partition for backup, storage, or whatever.

    Later if you need to update your build, you can just recreate the flash drive and then just copy the files from the flash drive to the Acronis FAT16 partition on the hard drive and you're set.
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2007
  9. MTX

    MTX Registered Member

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    MudCrab, thank you for the valuable tips on how to create a bootable hard disk complete with Backup Images.

    I've successfully created one using FAT32 cum NTFS partition; works great.
     
  10. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    I'm glad it worked. FAT32 should work fine (it obviously did for you). I just used FAT16 because on my computer it seemed more compatible with the BIOS detecting it as a USB-HD.
     
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