Question about usb boot stick

If I use a flash drive as a boot stick, can I still use the unused space as storage for other files?

Will that interfere with anything?

 

You can use the unused space on the flash drive for anything you want. Yes, that will work. The only way that you will interfere with the recovery environment is if you accidentally delete any of its files, so organizing your file storage into folders will help prevent that.

 

Here's a completely off-topic question...

Where's the "quick-reply" button in the posts?

i'm not seeing it anywhere...

 

It's the little "page & arrow" graphic next to the "quote" button.

 

Hello all,

Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

If you would like to create Acronis Bootable Media on a flash drive in Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, please see:

- Creating Acronis Bootable Media on a USB Flash Drive

If you would like to create Acronis Bootable Media on a flash drive in Linux distribution, please see:

- Creating Bootable Media in Acronis True Image Server for Linux

If you would like to create Acronis Bootable Media on a flash drive in Windows XP or any other operating system, please contact Acronis Customer Central with reference to the article http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/kb/articles/388/


Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev

 

Dmitry Nikolaev & Acronis Support,

Your instructions for using Vista's DISKPART to create a bootable flashdrive are pretty much the same as mine. However, I still don't understand why it's necessary for TI users to resort to these types of methods in order to get a flashdrive to boot properly. Why can't the Media Builder program actually WRITE the MBR code needed?

There are many programs that can write MBR code while in Windows: DISKPART, Grub4DOS, UltraISO, PeToUSB, etc. Why can't Media Builder?

Using DISKPART works fine, but the potential is great for a disaster if the user accidentally selects the wrong drive. I would advise you to put a caution on your instruction page that the user be sure of the drive selected and also recommend they have backups of any important files/partitions before proceeding.