Acronis Backup & Recovery: Using Acronis Media Builder to Build WinPE with Acronis Plug-In

Make sure you have Windows AIK installed, and then build WinPE with the Acronis plug-in from Acronis Media Builder

This article applies to:

Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5
Acronis Backup & Recovery 11

Introduction

Acronis Plug-in for WinPE is a modification of Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Agent for Windows that can run in the preinstallation environment. The plug-in can be added to a WinPE image using Bootable Media Builder. The resulting bootable media can be used to boot any PC-compatible machine and perform, with certain limitations, most of the direct management operations without help of an operating system. Operations can be configured and controlled either locally through the GUI or remotely using the console.

If you have Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) installed on the same computer with Acronis Bootable Media Builder, Acronis Backup & Recovery 11/11.5 will detect it, and you will be able to have the WinPE created from Acronis Bootable Media builder.

Downloading and installing Windows AIK

If you do not have Windows AIK, you can download it in ISO format from the Microsoft website:
- AIK for Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP2 (PE 2.0): http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C7D4BC6D-15F3-4284-9123-679830D629F2&displaylang=en
- AIK for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 (PE 2.1): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=94bb6e34-d890-4932-81a5-5b50c657de08&DisplayLang=en
- AIK for Windows 7 (PE 3.x): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=696DD665-9F76-4177-A811-39C26D3B3B34&displaylang=en
  (!) WinPE 3.x installation is not supported on Windows XP.
After you download an ISO file from the links, burn the ISO to a DVD disc (see Burning an ISO Image) and run it on the computer where Acronis Bootable Rescue Media Builder is installed (or where you plan to install it);
Click Windows AIK Setup:
After going through the wizard and clicking OK, the installation will start:

(!) Reboot the machine after the installation of Windows AIK, otherwise Acronis Backup & Recovery 11/11.5 will not be able to detect it properly and the creation of the WinPE media will fail.

Solution

Building WinPE media with the Acronis Plug-in

Run Acronis Management Console, click Tools -> Create bootable media:
On the Acronis Bootable Media window select Windows PE:
Then select Create Windows PE 2.x automatically:
If you are using Advanced version, you can pre-configure network connections that will be used by the bootable agent. If you plan to use bootable media only locally, select Disable remote connection. If you plan to connect to bootable media remotely, select Enable remote connection:

If the settings have not been pre-configured, the agent uses DHCP auto configuration. You also have the option to configure the network settings manually in command line when the bootable agent is running on the machine.

(!) Network connection settings are not available in Standalone versions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 11/11.5.
If you would like to add specific drivers both to the WinPE media and for Acronis Universal Restore, click add and browse to the folder with the *.inf driver files:

(!) If your specific hardware (e.g. RAID controller) is not supported by Linux-based Acronis Bootable Rescue media (see Acronis Bootable Media Types), you should add drivers for the necessary hardware at this step, to make sure that WinPE media recognizes hardware correctly.

(!) Drivers both for the WinPE media and Acronis Universal Restore are provided at the same step.

(!) Drivers for restoring to dissimilar hardware can always be added during the restore process.

(!) Drivers for WinPE can also be loaded after you boot from WinPE with the Load driver option:
Select the type of media to create (PXE/ISO/WIM):
The product will then start creating the WinPE media with the Acronis plug-in:
After the media is created, you should be able to boot from it. Acronis Backup & Recovery 11/11.5 will start automatically, once booted: