Creating Bootable USB Hard Disk with TI11

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by rugmankc, Aug 7, 2008.

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  1. rugmankc

    rugmankc Registered Member

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    MudCrab,

    Can I follow your instructions with TI11 without problems? I.E. will I get the same screens such as below with 11 as well as 10. Or, will any screens in TI11 be different? I don't remember seeing those screen choices when I do restores, but I maybe I shouldn't on my type of restores.

    Can I then reformat and reuse the flash drive, or leave it with the Acronis info on it for future use?


    Ken


    capture60.JPG

    Capture70.JPG
     
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2008
  2. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    If you're referring to the guide to create a bootable Acronis USB hard drive, the procedure is the same for TI 11.

    Once you have your image and/or the Acronis files from the flashdrive, you can do what you want with it. You don't really need to reformat it, though. You can just delete the Acronis files if you don't want them taking up space.
     
  3. rugmankc

    rugmankc Registered Member

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    MudCrab,

    Thanks, I will give it a try. Nice to have a substitute/backup for my boot cd.



    Ken
     
  4. rugmankc

    rugmankc Registered Member

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    MudCrab,

    Made the Lacie USB Hard Disk bootable, seems to have gone OK. When I turn the laptop on with the USB connected, I hit F11 and the USB boots. Same for the cruzer flash drive. I did not go into BIOS and change it to have the USB boot automatically. Don't know how to do that. I would prefer to let my Linux CD boot automatically. That leaves the DVD slot as the bootable drive not the USB ports.

    Some Questions:

    1. Can only one drive or port boot automatically, or can I make, thru BIOS, the DVD and a USB port boot without hitting F11?

    2. Can I still boot the linux CD and do backup/restores to/from the USB Hard Disk storage area thru Acronis without booting the Hard Disk?

    3. If question 2 is a yes, then I guess I can still drag and drop to the Hard Disk without booting it.


    Haven't tried any backups or drag and drops yet. Wanted to make sure I had my concerns addressed before trying.


    Thanks,

    Ken
     
  5. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    I assume that F11 is the key that brings up the Boot Device menu when you start your computer.

    Only one device can be the first boot device in the BIOS. Most of them will not keep unconnected devices in the list. If you want your DVD drive to boot first and then the internal drive, you'll have to leave your settings as they are. However, some will remember the last configuration. For example, if your normal setup has the DVD drive booting first and you plug in the USB hard drive (or flashdrive) and then change the BIOS to boot it first, the computer may revert back to booting from the DVD drive when the USB device is removed. You would have to try it and see.

    Yes. It's just a normal hard drive.

    Yes. You can use the drive normally in Windows, Linux, etc.
     
  6. rugmankc

    rugmankc Registered Member

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    MudCrab,

    Thanks,

    I thought that was the way it worked. Haven't recently tried F11 without the Cruzer or Lacie plugged in. When I hit F11 with either plugged in the device just boots. No menu. I'll try it with nothing plugged in. I have been in BIOS once or twice before, but forgot how I got there. :oops: I fumbled thru it and got done what I needed.



    Thanks Again,


    Ken
     
  7. rugmankc

    rugmankc Registered Member

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    Made my bootable external usb hard disk, all went well. I think?

    Did a backup with my bootable linux cd to the storage area on the external hard disk I created. Also, dragged and dropped data from my flash drive to the storage area. All OK.

    However, when I did a backup to the external disk by first booting it into the Acronis windows environment it assigned incorrect drive letters. I have a C main drive and a D recovery partition on my laptop. Backups have always recreated the C and D partitions correctly. This time I have a C and E with C being the recovery partition and E my main (C) partition. All data seems there, I haven't had time to test or verify the backup. Or, look at the Acronis partition I created on the ext drive.

    Any ideas? I can only think something didn't get done right when I made the drive bootable by putting the 100MB Acronis partition on the ext drive. I am certain no C or E drive letters are part of the partition.

    When I created the folders on the storage area to back up to, I labeled them as below.

    Linux Bootable CD BackUp 1/Acronis Full Image

    Windows Bootable CD BackUp 1/Acronis Full Image

    By having the same ending "/Acronis Full Image" would not cause a problem, would it?


    Thanks for any advice.


    Ken
     
  8. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    If it boots to the Acronis menu and you can succesfully run TI, then it's working.

    Good.

    I assume you mean you booted into TI from the USB drive and probably selected TI Full, which uses Linux. When you boot TI from a CD or from a USB device (TI Full Linux, VistaPE, etc.), the drive letters will not be assigned the same as in Windows. The assigned letters have no meaning. This is why it's important to have your partitions labeled with names: WinXP, Recovery, Data, Acronis, Backups, etc.

    Also, the booting drive usually gets assigned first because it's the first drive. When you boot a USB device, this can make the drive letters shuffle around more than when you boot the TI CD. Don't worry about it. Just go by the partition labels.

    If Linux Bootable CD BackUp 1 and Windows Bootable CD BackUp 1 are folders, then you should be okay. Otherwise, if you just named both of your backups Acronis Full Image and they were both placed in the same folder you'd either overwrite the previous image or create an Incremental or Differential depending on what options you selected.
     
  9. rugmankc

    rugmankc Registered Member

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    Thanks MudCrab,

    I understand what your're saying. Just, this is the first time they ever got shuffled. I was not sure what happened. Those were the folder names, that idea of the end of the folder names being the same and causing a problem was a long shot. I'll look at the volume names and see if the partitions have names. If not, I will see if I can figure out how to assign them names. My C and D partitions are backed up and restored as one image. So, there shouldn't be any confusion on my part.


    My main concern was when restoring the shuffled drive letters. But, based on your comments, there should be no issues.


    Ken
     
  10. rugmankc

    rugmankc Registered Member

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    Shuffled drive letters aside, everything seems OK.

    I finally verified the image back up I made thru the bootable ext usb drive. And, successfully did a test restore of a data file.


    So, even though I have to hit my F11 key several times at startup to get the drive to boot, all seems fine. I know I could have my son help me set the drive to boot first thru the BIOS. But, that would not allow my DVD to boot automatically when I play a DVD, or insert the Linux CD. I prefer the DVD drive to be set to boot first.


    Thanks for all the help MudCrab,



    Ken
     
  11. rugmankc

    rugmankc Registered Member

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    MudCrab,

    If I buy a larger, faster hard drive for my laptop and restore my latest image from my now bootable USB external drive to it, will I have to redo the steps to make the external drive bootable again?

    Or, is the now bootabe external drive independent from any hard drive I have installed in the laptop, as long as Acronis is installed on that internal drive.



    Thanks,

    Ken
     
  12. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    The bootable hard drive is independent of any OS installed on the computer or any other computer. Just as you wouldn't have to create a new TI CD, you don't have to recreate the USB hard drive. The only time this is necessary is if you need to update to a newer version or build and then you only need to create a flashdrive and then copy the files to the USB hard drive to update it.

    TI is on the USB drive and runs from there. You can boot from it just as from a flashdrive or CD. TI does not need to be installed on the computer in order for it to work from the USB drive.
     
  13. rugmankc

    rugmankc Registered Member

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    Thanks MudCrab,


    Ken
     
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