This article instructs how to collect an application's memory dump file under WinPE/WinRE-based bootable media.

The dump file is required for investigating cases of application crashes and hangs.

Method 1: Using Windows Task Manager

1. If an application crash occurs, do not close the corresponding message window. This is important, because as soon as you close it, all the relevant diagnostic information that could be captured is lost.
2. Switch to the black command prompt window by clicking on it.
3. Type taskmgr and press Enter.
4. Switch to the Processes tab.
5. Right-click the processes that crashed or locked up and select Create Dump File.
6. The memory dump file will be written to a temporary folder X:\Windows\temp\<process name>.dmp, e.g. X:\Windows\temp\TrueImage.dmp
7. Switch to the command prompt and type the following command to copy the .dmp file to a permanent folder, for example, to the root of the C: drive:

   copy /v X:\Windows\temp\TrueImage.dmp C:\TrueImage.dmp

Method 2: Using create_dump.bat script

If the above described method does not work for any reason, use a script to generate the application memory dump.

Part 1. Prepare the script

1. Download the archive with the script from here.
2. Unpack the downloaded zip archive and place it on any local disk, accessible from the bootable media. This includes: the bootable media itself (if it is a USB bootable media), a USB flash drive, USB hard disks, internal disks.
3. By default, the script creates a memory dump of the TrueImage.exe process. If you need to create a dump of a different process, open the file create_dump.bat in Notepad and replace TrueImage.exe and TrueImage.dmp with the other process name.

Part 2. Find out the path to the script under bootable media

1. Boot into Acronis Bootable Media.
2. Before reproducing the problem, begin any operation which requires browsing for a file or a location, for example, recovery. If the application crashes before you can click Browse, do not close the message about the crash and proceed to step 4.
3. If the program crashes before you can see the Browse dialog and the folder tree in it, switch to the black command prompt window and type the following commands, pressing Enter after each line:

   diskpart

   list volume

   It will give you the list of attached disk volumes and their letters.

4. Find the disk with the script folder and note the disk's drive letter. Disk letters may differ from those that you normally see in Windows.
5. Note the path to the .bat file in the script folder, for example, C:\create_dump\create_dump.bat

Part 3. Reproduce the problem and generate the dump file

1. If an application crash occurs, do not close the corresponding message window. This is important, because as soon as you close it, all the relevant diagnostic information that could be captured is lost.
2. Switch to the black command prompt window by clicking on it.
3. Type in the noted path to the script, enclosed in double quotes, for example "C:\create_dump\create_dump.bat"
4. Press Enter on keyboard to execute the script.

The dump file will be generated and placed in the script folder, next to the .bat file. In the example above it would be C:\create_dump\TrueImage.dmp