disc boot

Hello I have an Acronis disc but wondered if I should make a boot disc. Would the pc not recognize the Acronis disc because boot order is not set to boot. Never know when trouble may hit. I have a Norton boot disc I can make but if Acronis woud get me going regardless of boot order then I'll stick with it. Thank you Peter

Your computer will never boot to disk unless the boot order has boot to CD as first boot, regardless of what sort of CD it is. Personally, I just leave my BIOS boot order set to CD as first boot. The extra seconds it adds to my boot-up time (total boot time is about a minute or less to desktop) doesn't bother me. If you don't have an Acronis boot disk, you should make one. I don't use Acronis as I prefer to use Macrium Reflect. I have a BartPE boot-disk for that if I ever need it to access any ISO back-up images I store on a separate hard drive. Cheers, Lee

If I understand, you should always leave boot order set to cd? Do you power up using a disc each time you want internet? Once you set boot order to use the disc doesn't that change after it boots up and return to normal powering up? Could you tab F2, F8, F12 to set boot order before it reaches windows. I am trying to anticipate how to access desktop in the event the normal mode malfunctions. Btw, I used to use Macrium Reflect and it was a nice program. I bumped into after I got the licence for Acronis and I really like the latter now. I have a WD version of Acronis for my laptop as it comes free with Seagate, or WD usb drives. Hope to hear P.S I just read up a bit more and will put what I found in qoutes; "Turn the computer system off and then on again. Insert the recovery disc into your CD-ROM drive. Turn the computer back off and then on again. The CD-ROM light will come on and the system will start up from the recovery disc." Does this sound right?

Hi Peter,
I know that you have Acronis installed on your computer…and that is a good thing.

You should definitely make a bootable boot disc ( CD) using the wizard in Acronis…..

in explanation..you would only use this disc if you could not boot your machine into Windows….

after you have tried everything you can think of to get into Windows and have still failed then its time to dust off your Acronis disc and boot from this…..(you may have to set your BIOS boot priority to allow booting first from Cd but many BIOS's these days allow this booting from CD by default…. ( its best to just try it and see if it will boot from CD….) if not then you can adjust the BIOS to allow it…your computer is clever enough to look first for a CD in the CD tray and if it finds one there it may flash up a message saying
"strike any key to boot from CD" you just then press the space bar once…. and it will boot into the Acronis. If there is no bootable CD in the CD tray then your computer will automatically boot from your hard drive in the normal way…

The whole object of using the bootable Cd is to allow you to start your computer when Windows is so damaged that it wont load by the usual means so that you can access your Acronis disc image that (hopefully) is kept on an external hard drive (USB) its then "plane sailing" to reimage your c drive so it all works again…

When your computer is working well… then you just start up your computer in the normal way and the Acronis boot disc stays in its safe place in your cupboard or wherever you keep it..( Not in your computer)

It should only be used when you can't get your machine started in Windows no matter what you try….
Hope this helps but if you need any clarification post back and one of us will do our best to help
Happy New year
Regards
paws

Hi Paws I just read your post after I P.S.'d the message I just left here. I always keep my Acronis disc BUT When I have recovered from Windows it takses twice as long as when I have booted from the disc. Is there a reason not to use the disc rather than the program in Windows? Thanx Peter

Hi Peter You only need to use the Acronis bootable CD if you can't get into Windows If you can boot into Windows then its usually better to use Acronis from within Windows to do your reimaging or restore your files than using the CD disc.. the use of the CD is the last resort (so to speak) Hope this helps Regards paws

Paws I have Win 7 and I'd like to think I can boot from the Acronis cd even if the boot order is not set, the possiblility you alluded to.. I always thought the pc returned to normal boot after it powered up not that it stayed in cd/dvd. I will use the Windows Acronis program rather than the cd if I am recovering. If I can't start I'll use the disc and I think it will respond to the cd upon boot. Maybe if I am lucky I can tap F12 + set boot to cd.. If I am really lucky i won't have to worry about it. Best of New years to you also. Peter PS May I ask, what boot do you leave your pc on?

Hi Peter, I often use the following order 1 Optical drive ( CD/DVD) 2 Hard drive 0 3 any other! I rarely need to boot from USB but if necessary I adjust to make USB as priority 2 and Hard drive) as priority 3… Hope this helps Regards paws

Peter,
I think your asking if in an emergency, will your PC boot from your Acronis CD even if CD is not set to first boot(?). Well no it won't. Not even by pressing F (whatever). You would have to enter your BIOS first and set CD as first boot and then "press any key to boot from disc" if that prompt comes up, but from a bootable CD it should just boot from the CD.

As for a normal boot-up to desktop using a CD, well no, that is not how a PC is meant to work. With CD set to first boot and maybe USB set as second boot, when you boot-up and no bootable CD or USB drive is found in the computer, your PC will just boot from your hard drive.

As Paws has set his own PC, enter the BIOS and set the boot order as he has set it and make sure your W7 ISO is not on the same hard-drive as your OS. Have it on a USB drive or like I do, on a second internal drive for general convenience and a USB drive kept in a safe place as a final back-up.

If all that goes pear-shaped, I just "nuke and pave" from my original retail CDs as there is no personal data ever in my OS partitions anyway ( I run dual boot XP and W7), except the OSs, programs and drivers, which are no big deal to re-install as I'm like a pig-in-a-mudbath with that sort of stuff

Cheers,
Lee

I need to undestand how to set boot order. Usually I tap F12 and just select dvd to boot from it,BUT, I think that is for just the one instance and it reverts back to normal. I don't know how to enter the BIOS and set permanent boot order. Once I figure this out, i will set it so dvd is first. >>and make sure your W7 ISO is not on the same hard drive as your os =I do not understand this statement.. **I tried it but when I made the dvd the first there popped up a box withdvd first and the other dvd as second and no choice for hard drive or usb or anything.???

To change Boot Sequence in your BIOS
Reboot the system and at the first post screen (where it is counting up memory) start tapping the DEL button
This will enter you into the Bios\Cmos area.
Find the Advanced area and click Enter
Look for Boot Sequence or Boot Options and highlight that click Enter
Now highlight the first drive and follow the directions on the bottom of the screen on how to modify it and change it to CDrom.
Change the second drive to the C or Main Drive
Once that is done then click F10 to Save and Exit
You will prompted to enter Y to verify Save and Exit. Click Y and the system will now reboot with the new settings.

I hit enter and was able to select dvd(top one on my machine) as first boot and hard drive was second. I made no more adjustments. I then tried F12 to see and hard drive was first. Maybe this means F12 is for a one time boot and what I did sets the boot order to dvd. Is it true that the pc sense no disc if it is a normal power up and then just boots up? Then if there is an issue you can boot with a cd having set the boot order to dvd first in the BIOS. I did save it. Thank you PS Foolishly and in haste I left the BIOS key F2 w/o network and took me awhile to find it. I just wanted to thank you all because someday I may need to boot with a rescue disc and now i will be able to. It was a learning experirnce and when you learn it sounds so ez -not so before you learn it. Thank you all very much.

I'm glad we could help and your boot sequence is now set for you. Congratulations and please let us know if you need any further help.

Rshaffer61 has already given you the correct method to enter and set the boot order in the BIOS.
Just remember, to negotiate around the BIOS, use your keyboard's Enter, Arrows and Escape keys to negotiate ( you cannot use your mouse).

and make sure your W7 ISO is not on the same hard drive as your os =I do not understand this statement

"OS" means operating system which is usually on the C: drive partition (if you only have only one OS on your PC). You may or may not have other partitions on this hard drive and you may have another hard drive (or more) in your PC. That main hard drive is called " Disk O". A second hard drive is called "Disk 1". A third would be recognized as "Disk 2".

Example(my PC):
[attachment removed]

They are Lettered that way deliberately so when viewed under folder views they look like this:

[attachment removed]

As I use "D" to store personal data from "My documents" that are auto-redirected from both XP and W7 (into separate folders), it sits in the middle of my XP and W7 drives as I'm often accessing it from either XP or W7.
"F" drive is my optical drive and comes next. Those four drives are the ones I use and access most frequently, so they sit under folder views together as the top 4 (C, D, E, F). If my "Disk O" fails, I just pop in another I have as a spare, partition it and restore the OS images. Same for "Disk 1".
Obviously, other Techs might arrange their folder views differently by lettering their partitioned drives to suit the way they use their computer.

"Archive K" is right at the bottom on "Disk 1", as that is where I store my ISO images of XP and W7 (also copied to an external drive). Data drive "D" is also regularly backed up to a USB drive too. As you can see "K" is on a separate hard drive to my OSs and that is what I meant, by " make sure your W7 ISO is not on the same hard drive as your OS". Your W7 ISO image should never be on "Disk 0".

Cheers,
Lee

I appreciate the explanation and better understand the drives and more. I am gaining ground with each error or investigation. My set up is fairly simple as I have one partition which I image occasionally and keep two individual flash drives to store some data I don't want in the system. If one drive fails I always replace both. Flash drives seem to back up accurately over the years and it would be a rare instant that both would fail at the same time. Instead of using partitions I am using drives. To look at/recover my sensitive data, I have these flash drives, and to recover my system, I use Acronis. At least now I can hope to use the rescue disk by having the boot order set properly.