If your computer does not boot or you have a new computer without any operating system installed on it, you can boot your computer with Acronis bootable media. The bootable media is a USB flash drive or a CD with Acronis software on it. This way, you can recover from a backup in case your computer does not boot anymore.

How to create a bootable USB

All current versions of Acronis software can create bootable USB flash drives. We recommend creating a bootable media in advance.

1. Plug in the USB flash drive.
2. Start Acronis software.
3. Open Acronis bootable media builder (Media builder is a component of Acronis software that places necessary files on the USB drive or CD/DVD to make it bootable) and follow on-screen instructions. The media builder offers you to select the media which you want to make bootable; in this step, select your USB flash drive.
   
   How to create a bootable media in Acronis True Image 2020
   How to create a bootable media in Acronis True Image 2019
   How to create a bootable media in Acronis True Image 2018
   How to create a bootable media in Acronis True Image 2017
   How to create a bootable media in Acronis Backup 12.5
   How to create a bootable media in Acronis Backup 11.7/11.5

Starting from Acronis True Image 2019 you can also create a bootable USB disc with backup file(s). See product documentation for more details.

How to use a bootable USB

1. Plug in the USB flash drive.
2. Start your computer.
3. On the screen, you see Acronis bootable media interface. For example, this is how Acronis True Image bootable media looks:

   

4. Follow on-screen instructions.
   
   How to recover from a backup with Acronis True Image 2020
   How to recover from a backup with Acronis True Image 2019
   How to recover from a backup with Acronis True Image 2018
   How to recover from a backup with Acronis True Image 2017
   How to recover from a backup with Acronis Backup 12.5
   How to recover from a backup with Acronis Backup 11.7/11.5

What to do, if creating a bootable USB fails

If you encounter issues when creating a bootable USB flash drive or disk by means of Acronis bootable media builder you can try one of the workarounds below:

Creating Acronis bootable media on a USB flash drive (applies to Windows Vista/7/2008/2008 R2)

1. Insert your flash drive;
2. Hit Win-R (Start-Run) and type cmd to open a command-line;
3. Type diskpart to run Windows DiskPart utility:
4. Type list disk to list all disks attached to the machine:
   

   

5. Type select disk [number] to select your flash drive:
   

   

6. Type clean to remove any formatting from the selected disk:
   

   

7. Type create partition primary:
   

   

8. Type select partition 1 to select the only partition, which you now have on the flash drive:
   

   

9. Type active to mark the partition as active:
   

   

10. Type format fs=fat32 to format the disk in FAT32 (otherwise the drive will not be bootable):
    

    

11. Type assign to assign a drive letter:
    

    

12. Type exit to exit Windows DiskPart utility:
    

    

13. Run your Acronis product;
14. Pick Tools -> Create Bootable Rescue Media;
15. Follow all steps of the wizard and select your USB flash drive as media.