Bootable USB disk

Greetings. First time poster here. Also new to Acronis products.

Question for yous. 99% of machines I play with are laptops. I really hate depending on 16x dvd drives to do my work. I now put images on UFDs and shave 10+ minutes per backup/restore, and dont waste DVD dual layers anymore. My next project is, I have managed to make DRDs on Acronis's boot disc, but I want to do that on the UFDs as well. Ive spent dozens of hours researching how to make bootable UFDs, has someone found a working one? I know a lot are shoot and miss, but sheesh...

I will be doing this on several UFDs, ie bootable, so once I find a working guide, I can apply it to other projects. This is no problem on cd/dvds for me.

Thanks ahead of time.

 

Are you aware of the excellent tutorial by MudCrab!


How to Create an Acronis Bootable USB Hard Disk
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=176958

 

actually... no.

I have not seen one from these forums, just the first couple pages of hits from google Ive tried

I'll be checking it out..

Thanks!

 

wow... it needs an update!


I dont even wanna think how many hours ive dumped into trying to make a bootable stick. I got 8gig stick and after reading those messages, trying the procedures got me nowhere (not just this sites). youd think by now there would be something simple.

I tried
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6160062.html

after 30minutes I played with it, I got the message that my disk is too big as it uses fat16. ie, old instructions. and its not like I can modify the format command it uses.. and it isnt even for making a bootable Acronis disc on UFD

 

I've mostly switched to using Grub4DOS on my flashdrives. It generally works well and will boot almost anything. The latest versions should even boot the Acronis ISO files okay if you don't want to run Media Builder on the drive.

In failed attempts, some flashdrives can get messed up to the point they require a reset to be detected correctly. For example, Windows will see the drive but TI/DD won't.

If you can't use FAT32 for the format on your large drive, you'll have to use a partitioning program that supports flashdrives to create a 2GB or smaller FAT16 partition (Windows can't do this). I would recommend using FAT32.

 

Sorry for butting in,

MudCrab,

Based on my signature info below, am I a candidate for Grub4DOS. Or, is that for unique situations. If I need it, how do I incorporate putting it on the flash drive while following your instructions in Making a Bootable USB Hard Drive.

Will your instructions work for TI11?



Thanks,

Ken

 

I like using Grub4DOS on my flashdrives because it's easy to install and easy to repair from Windows. I can also easily add/change what I want to boot (BartPE, VistaPE, Acronis, Knoppix, etc.) and multiple setups can be managed.

I usually setup the flashdrive with VistaPE (as shown here) and then just run Media Builder on the drive to add the Acronis programs. Note that the VistaPE build doesn't have to be completely functional. It just needs to copy the Grub4DOS files. Finally, I add the Acronis entry to the menu.lst file. A normal entry might be:

Code:

title Acronis TI and DD
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

If you're using one of the later builds of Grub4DOS, you can boot the Acronis ISO file directly by placing the file in the root folder of the flashdrive and then adding a menu entry like:

Code:

title Acronis Disk Utilities [iso version]
map (hd0,0)/ati.iso (hd32)
map --hook
chainloader (hd32)

Basically, use what works best for you and your computer. Using the Grub4DOS MBR and program is just another option to try if the Acronis MBR won't work. Plus it adds a lot more options for extending the usefulness of your flashdrive.

When making changes or updates, just copy the updated files to the flashdrive and it's done.

 

MudCrab,

Thanks for the link to the additional builds. I wasn't aware of some of them. Acronis is working great for me at this time. But, I like to learn new things and experiment.


Ken

 

Can you give me more infos on the procedure for this? i have downloaded the file... the question is how do i make this work on my 8gb stick. will i have to partition it? Make boot partition 256 or 512mb? fat16/32? doesnt acronis have a disk partitioning application? disk director suite?

 

You can use Windows to format/partition the flashdrive. I'd just use one FAT32 partition.

1. Create a single FAT32 partition on the flashdrive. Use Disk Management or Acronis Disk Director or any other partitioning program.
2. Run Acronis Media Builder on the flashdrive to copy the TI files.
3. Run the Grub GUI Installer to copy the Grub4DOS MBR code to the flashdrive (can be downloaded from the link in post #7 and instructions are in Step #4).
4. Copy the grldr file to the root folder of the flashdrive. The current builds of Grub4DOS can be downloaded here.
5. Copy the background image you want to the root folder of the flashdrive (face.gz, for example).
6. Create the menu.lst file (a sample is shown below).

Sample menu.lst file with face.gz for background image and Acronis booting from the partition's boot sector (as setup by Media Builder):

Code:

splashimage /face.gz
timeout 30
default 0
 
title Acronis True Image
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

title CommandLine
commandline
 
title Reboot
reboot
 
title Halt
halt

 

i am now more confused

 

after following your steps above, i restart and receive:

missing MBR helper. after looking at the help files in grub4dos:

1. Missing MBR-helper.

The helper function in the sectors that immediately follow the MBR is
not present, or it has been erased by a virus or by Windows XP/Vista.

Run the bootlace.com utility to fix the problem.

clicking it does nothing.

 

Perhaps there is a problem with mixing the newer builds of Grub4DOS and the older GUI MBR code. I haven't actually tried it yet, though I'm pretty sure it should work. **EDIT: I did try this and I didn't run into any problems.

Did the GUI Installer report any errors?

Does your flashdrive have any software or security functions built into it? Those drives can cause all sorts of problems.

 

just a cheap old Kingston 512mb UFD

tried it on the Lexar 8Gig too

 

just wanted to shout out a BIG thank you Mudcrab for running me through this on the phone last couple hours...

I now have an Acronis True Image Echo Server boot disk, err boot USB Flash Drive, and putting the DRD image on it now to prepare it for testing tomorrow. wish me luck, and thanks again

 

I tried to boot the Gparted iso off my hard disk using this same bit of code, but although the boot process initially looked promising, it eventually failed with a message to the effect that it hadn't found a usable file system.

hd0,0 is a NTFS partition on this machine, but I have an Ext3 partition at hd0,4. Would substituting that help?

I am using the latest version of Grub4DOS.

 

I haven't tried Gparted from an ISO. I have had problems with Parted Magic not booting correctly, though it has problems booting normally.

The booting drive and partition will be seen as (hd0,0). If you have the ISO on another partition, you'd need to reference the correct one so Grub4DOS could find the file. You could also copy the ISO to the booting partition and try it that way first (if you haven't) to make sure it works.

You can also try using the --mem option. This helps some ISO files to load correctly (especially if they're fragmented on the drive).

Code:

title Gparted [iso version]
map [b]--mem[/b] (hd0,0)/gparted.iso (hd32)
map --hook
chainloader (hd32)

Are you using the 4.4 (12-29-200 build of Grub4DOS? If so, you may want to try using the 4.4 (11-19-200 build. If not, you may want to try it. Some builds will boot ISO files differently. I had to use an earlier build for a while because one of my ISO files wouldn't boot correctly. This was fixed on the 11-19-2008 build so I switched to it. I haven't tried the 12-29-2008 build yet.

 

I'm using the (Windows) booting partition and the boot process goes well up to a point but about line 101 starts generating error "Cannot open device /dev/hdc.....no medium found" and ends up with "This Debian image failed to boot.........Unable to find a medium containing a live file system"

That was using Grub4DOS 0.4.4 11-19-2008. I tried substituting grldr from the 12-29-2008 version but the two files are identical. Is there something else I should be doing with that version?