Acronis Bootable Flash Creation using Grub4DOS utility

Today I would like to describe how to create bootable flash with embedded Acronis tools (Acronis Bootable Media) like Acronis True Image or Acronis Disk Director. Surely you can create bootable CD/DVD yourself but sometimes you need namely bootable flash stick since for example you use netbook or your CD/DVD drive is broken.

First I would like to say that there is a simple way to create the indicated bootable flash using Acronis Media Builder however whats to do if you have only ISO image of Acronis and you need to boot it having no CD/DVD drive. Moreover I have requested several times specific ISO image from Acronis support. This ISO includes additional parameters/commands so I can use it under specific hardware configuration. 

OK lets start. There are several ways to create Acronis bootable flash:

- Using Grub4DOS utility
- Using SYSLINUX
- Using HP USB Format tool
- Using Windows OS tools (under Windows Vista or Windows 7)
- Using Acronis Media builder (as described in User's Guide of Acronis, chapter 7.2) and etc.,

Show you the way with Grub4DOS!

1. Install Grub4DOS on your flash drive.

- Download this zipped file and run usb_format.exe file inside.

- Download Grub4Dos installer (grub4dos.zip) at: http://depositfiles.com/files/0iz7maw9l and extract files.
- Now launch the grubinst_gui.exe program from the extracted archive.
- Select the Disk option (radio button), click the Refresh button and then choose your flash drive from the dropdown list.
- In the same extracted archive find and copy grldr and menu.lst files from grub folder to the flash drive.

2. Install Acronis Bootable Media:

- Open menu.lst file using Notepad program. Here you have already the following code:

timeout 0
default 0
title Hiren's BootCD
find --set-root /HBCD/menu.lst
configfile /HBCD/menu.lst

- Type in or copy the following code:

title i Acronis True Image Media 

find --set-root /HBCD/Acronis_rescue.iso
map --mem /HBCD/Acronis_rescue.iso (hd32)
map --hook

chainloader (hd32)
boot 

Please note!! The defaults ISO name in this article is AcronisMedia.iso, however you can name it as you wish and specify this in the menu.lst file

- Save the changes closing the file.
- Copy AcronisMedia.iso file to the flash drive.

3. Test your USB flash drive.

- Boot from your flash drive indicating boot from USB in the BIOS.

Kaspersky Bootable Flash Creation

Once your PC is not bootable due to viruses and you need to remove them I may recommend you to create Kaspersky Rescue flash drive.

To create one you should follow these requirements:

- USB stick file system is FAT 32 (or at least FAT16).
- USB drive capacity should be not less than 256 Mb.

Download ISO image of Kaspersky Bootable Disk at: http://rescuedisk.kaspersky-labs.com/rescuedisk/updatable/kav_rescue_10.iso

Now you also need specific utility to record the downloaded image to USB flash. You can find it at: http://rescuedisk.kaspersky-labs.com/rescuedisk/updatable/rescue2usb.exe

Run this file rescue2usb.exe, click Browse... and select the ISO image of Kaspersky Bootable Disk.

Then select the required USB drive from the drop down menu.Click START button and wait until the end of the process.

It should take a couple of minutes to have the window reporting that the recording is done.

Now you may use the created media to check your PC for viruses and trojans.

Multiboot USB flash drive creation

How to create multiboot flash drive?

First, we need to select boot loader. Grub4Dos is a universal boot loader, allows to select which operating system to load when multiple operating systems are installed. Also it is one of the most famous boot loader used to boot USB flash drives.Grub4Dos supports ISO emulation, memory mapping.

In general Grub4Dos is suitable tool for our purpose giving great opportunity to create multiboot flash with multi options.

1. Grub4Dos deployment: 

- Use empty flash drive.
- Download this zipped file and run usb_format.exe file inside. Follow the next 3 steps as represented on the screen shot.

- Download Grub4Dos installer (grub4dos.zip) at: http://depositfiles.com/files/0iz7maw9l and extract files.
- Now launch the grubinst_gui.exe program from the extracted archive.
- Select the Disk option (radio button), click the Refresh button and then choose your flash drive from the dropdown list.
- In the same extracted archive find and copy grldr and menu.lst files from grub folder to the flash drive.

2. Software installation and boot menu editing.

- Open menu.lst file using text editor (like Notepad, Wordpad, etc.).
- So now you can insert the code into menu.lst file. This code allows to use the required software/tools under bootable environment, edit the boot menu, specify comments.

For example, we need to use memory diagnostic utility booting from the flash drive. To perform this use the following code:

title Memory Diagnostic
find --set-root /folder/memtest.gz
kernel /folder/memdisk
initrd /folder/memtest.gz

The head of the item starts from title command. The text indicated after this command (namely, Memory Diagnostic) will be shown on the boot menu screen.

find --set-root command searches the indicated file (namely, memtest.gz) in the folder on the flash drive.