GA-Z170X-UD3 Motherboard - Boot from USB possible or not?

[paulgood]

Hi guys I'm not an expert, but am looking for a simple solution.

I have revision 1.0 of the GA-Z170X-UD3 motherboard running 2 x Samsung SSD's Evo 850 & a 6TB WD hard drive for data.

Both of the SSD's have a clean working copy of Windows 7 64 bit (identical clones through Acronis Ture Image 2016), all is working fine. The rest of the system is an Intel i7 running at 4GHz, has 16GB of Ram & an AMD Radeon R7 Graphics card. Everything is working fine.

However, this is my question. I wish to be able to copy/ clone Windows 7 as it is from my primary SSD onto a external USB hard drive. I have a 5TB WD Elements with plenty of space on it for the operating system.

How can I configure my motherboard boot up sequence, so that I can boot up from this external USB Hard drive, in the event of a system failure/ virus. This would then allow me to keep a good copy of Windows 7 on my external hard disk & boot up, then restore windows 7 from it if there's a major windows problem.

As it is, the boot sequence in the bios only shows 2 x SSD's & the 6TB WD hard drive for data.

I appreciate your help in this matter.

Regards Paul

[dmdilks]

When the computer starts to boot hit F12 that will let you pick what ever drive you want to boot from.

Plus this is some info that might help to - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvWGV9YJxfQ

[shadowsports]

Hi Paul,
Why not use Acronis as it was intended?  Suggest a weekly full disk image back up with daily incremental or differential snapshots.  1 to 3 weeks retention which will give you several recovery options.  If you want to maintain separate installs for each SSD drive, use separate folders on the destination for each chain.   

[paulgood]

Hi again Guys, I appreciate your help but maybe i haven't explained myself clearly, oops!

All I want to do is create a clone copy of windows 7 from my C:\ (which is an SSD) onto an external hard drive. Then I would need to have that external hard drive so that when booting from bios (in the event of a system crash), it could over write the SSD with a clean working copy of windows 7 which is currently on the C:\ drive.

What's the simplest & easier way of doing this?

[shadowsports]

Hi Paul,
I am quite familiar with Acronis I assure you    Booting from an external drive is not supported by windows. 


So to clear things up.  Cloning to an external drive is not supported.  Creating a Disk Image Back up and saving to an external destination is.

Cloning is inherently risky.  Disk images back ups are safer and more flexible.  With disk images, you are able to mount the .tib image and read or write to/from it.  You can also restore individual files / directories or individual partitions to the same or different location.  I usually recommend cloning only for someone who is looking to migrate to a new (maybe larger) disk.  I would first however, recommend that you have a full disk image back up before attempting to clone.  Cloning should always be performed using Acronis Bootable Media.  Please see this KB article which may be helpful. 

https://kb.acronis.com/content/56634

I am happy to discuss further with you. 

[paulgood]

Dear Shadowsports, Thanks ever so much for that. I get it now. I can't boot from a cloned USB Hard drive, which would have been ideal.

My only option is to clone one SSD onto the other & leave one of the cloned SSD's disconnected. It's a shame this is my only option, as I was hoping to boot from a USB Hard drive.

Are there any operating systems that would allow you to clone onto a external USB drive & boot from it in the event of a system failure (windows virus/ malware attack)?

Regards Paul

[dmdilks]

I am quite familiar with Acronis I assure you    Booting from an external drive is not supported by windows. 

I have been using this program for years and I love it. I just join the forum too.

[ElectroStingz]

Hello,

Why mess around with a full working clone?

Acronis allows you to create a bootable rescue CD, essentially an external OS which loads the Acronis tools.
With that you can then restore any Acronis image <TIB file.

You can even use that bootable CD to create your image, don't choose clone option, choose Backup.
To restore the image TIB choose Recovery.

This gives you a backup file which is the image of your SSD, you can copy it easily, burn it to a DVD... <depending on size.

[paulgood]

Hi, in reply to ElectroStingz's post,

As i have an external USB hard drive, are you saying I could create a copy of my windows SSD drive onto that? My copy of windows on that SSD is 70GB & will easily fit onto the external USB hard drive.

I'm not a techie, nor an expert on Acronis true image 2016, so i need a very simple explanation of how to achieve this please. Thanks for your help guys.

regards paul

[ElectroStingz]

Yes, by using the backup feature it creates a disk image file.
This will simply be 1 file 70GB (less than that) which you can store anywhere on any medium, unlike a disk clone.

The idea is that should your drive fail you buy a new one then restore the disk image, the Acronis software will recreate the drive data based on that file <This is what you want

As a preference I always recommend that you create the disk image using a clean windows installation with minimal data on it. For example if your drive lasts 2 years when it comes to restoring your image you will have old software / drivers. Therefore it is better to create the image just after Windows has been installed <clean state.

I don't have Acronis 2015/16 but the free Western Digital version can be used for reference purposes and the steps are similar.



Press on Entire PC, Choose Disk and partitions


Choose full partition list (see at the bottom it says short partition list)
Here you will choose your SSD drive, this is the source drive to copy.


Choose your destination drive, where you want to save the image.


Browse


Find your location, Windows 10 = This PC, you will need to find your drive letter of said USB drive.


I plan to save the image to my E: drive in a folder called Acronis


Confirm details, click Backup Now


Watch it do its thing


Done


Check to see if there is now a TiB file at that location.
This is your backup / clone stored to the file.


I didn't choose External drive as the option is not required, once you have any drive connected to the PC it will be browsable anyway so navigate to it.

Now the only thing left to cover is how to restore but that is kind of reversal of the above with you just choosing Recovery option. This stage you would simply choose the whole image (file) and restore the whole lot, all partitions.
Just make sure you choose the destination correctly.

And before you do that, try out the bootable CD, Rescue media builder (DVD drive required)


This will allow you to create an image (Clone) or recover one to a new drive without using Windows, you boot from the CD first.

These images will vary slightly but I hope this provides you with some useful guidance, it should work for your WD USB drive so give it a go. (WD Acronis software only works with WD detected products)

[shadowsports]

Hey Guys,
"Cloning" and Disk Image Back Ups" are completely different operations.

Paul,
You cannot clone your existing disk to external USB storage.  The procedure ElectroStingz has described above is a partition level, or Disk Image Back Up.  His example is also using Acronis True Image Western Digital Edition, which is NOT a full featured version of the product.  Its OEM and is distributed and supported by WD.  And as he points out..  WD Acronis software only works with WD detected products.

Clone and Disk Image Back ups are not interchangeable operations.  New users often use these terms incorrectly (interchangeably) based on their desired outcome, but I can assure you cloning to an external disk is not possible.  Cloning deletes all existing partitions and data.  The external device is not bootable.  Please use my recommendation above and create a Full Disk Image Back Up of the OS (boot drive) you want to protect.

[ElectroStingz]

Hey Guys,
"Cloning" and Disk Image Back Ups" are completely different operations.

I haven't said otherwise?

Copying a drive directly to another drive = Clone
Copying a drive directly to a file = Imaging

When I said (clone) at the end I am referring to what the bootcd can also do, just trying to mention that additional feature. 

[dmdilks]

You cannot clone your existing disk to external USB storage. 

You can clone to external but I don't think you can boot from it. I just clone my windows 7 to one. But I try to boot from it got to the windows logo screen and rebooted. But I'm use a boot manager from windows 10. I don't know if that is screwing with, I'll try another test from a straight windows 7 without the dual boot.

[dmdilks]

OK I got it to work from a ext hard drive. You need ext hard drive that supports USB & Sata. It wouldn't work with the USB, but it did with the Sata connection. I have older ext hard drive that has a sata connection on the back of it.

Today you can only get them as esata. So you have to fine a sata to esata cable. So you can connect it to one of you sata ports. You can clone it by the USB, but you can only boot from the sata port.

Plus I'm using the Acronis software

[shadowsports]

Hey Guys,
"Cloning" and Disk Image Back Ups" are completely different operations.

I haven't said otherwise?

Copying a drive directly to another drive = Clone
Copying a drive directly to a file = Imaging

When I said (clone) at the end I am referring to what the bootcd can also do, just trying to mention that additional feature. 

I'm not saying you did, but Paul has renewed hope that he will be able to "clone" his boot drive to his external disk and recover from it in the event his boot drive fails.  If a clone is performed, this will not be the case.  If a disk image back up is performed, any partition, file, folder or complete disk can be restored to his boot drive.     

A "clone" does indeed create an identical duplicate of the source and copies it (for lack of better words) to a target.  The issue here is (and what many) people don't understand is that the target is over written.  I can't tell you the number of folks we hear from regularly that use the software to "clone" their boot drive only to find out it wiped out all of the pictures on the external disk they thought they were cloning to.  Of course the software warns of this, but it is often overlooked. 

Regardless of whether you clone in windows or from Bootable Media...  The operation occurs in the Linux boot environment.  The Boot media, boots directly into this environment.  A clone operation initiated in windows, shuts down and restarts, again in the Linux boot environment.  It is safest to perform a clone using boot media.  While the option to initiate in windows exists and the boot environment is (should be) identical (the same) people seem to have problems more times that not using this method. 

**Edit for dmdilks recent post in regards to eSATA to SATA.  Cloning (based on the experiences of many) The recommended method is to put the target into the permanent location and to connect the source to another SATA port, and/or interface.  Once complete, you disconnect the source and boot to the new target.  While it is possible to do this in reverse, many people experience problems when they move the target into the boot drive position.  This is covered in the KB article (video) above).  I only make this recommendation because this what has provided the highest level of positive results, consistently.  It is also the only method recommended by Acronis.  I think we've discussed this one in its entirety.  Appreciate everyone's contributions.