Using Acronis True Image to Restore a Backup

Using Acronis True Image to Restore a Backup

Things You'll Need:

  1. Target machine
  2. External USB HDD/SSD containing a working image of the computer you want to restore
  3. (if no DVD drive on target machine): external USB DVD Drive
  4. Acronis bootable media -- flash drive or DVD
  5. Monitor, keyboard, mouse

Booting Into Acronis Backup/Restore Utility

  1. Before powering on your machine:
  1. Plug in your external USB hard drive containing the appropriate backup files 
  1. Plug in your optical drive and insert the appropriate Acronis system recovery disc OR plug in your Acronis bootable USB
  1. Turn on the power, and before the machine boots, enter Boot Options / System Setup menu, usually achieved by pressing ESC, DEL, F2, or F10 as the machine boots up
  1. Once in the boot menu, choose to boot from whichever option contains your Acronis media (should be similar to USB CD-ROM or SATA Optical Drive) or bootable media
  1. If you see the “Press any key…” prompt, press any key to load the Acronis Utility
  1. It will load as though you are booting into a Windows OS, this process can take around 10-15 minutes

Performing the Recovery

  1. Once the utility has loaded, you will see a Command Prompt executing some commands. Let this happen.
  1. A new window “Acronis True Image 2019” will pop up and put you at its home screen with options to Back up and Recover
  1. Under “Recover”, click “My Disks”. A “Recovery Wizard” window opens.
  1. On the “Archive Selection” step, browse to the location of your desired backup, select it, and click OK. Verify that your desired backup is highlighted and click Next
  1. On the “Recovery method” step, select “Recover whole disks and partitions” and click Next
  1. On the “What to Recover” step, select the box next to Disk 1 – this will select all partitions on your backup. Click Next.
  1. On the “Destination of Disk 1” step, select the Disk of your target machine and click Next
  1. Important Note: do NOT select the disk containing your backups. This will overwrite the drive and you will lose all data on that disk
  1. On the “Finish” step, review the Summary to verify that you selected the correct options and click Proceed
  1. An additional window will pop up showing the progress of the recovery.  There are also options on this window to automatically restart or shut down the machine once the recovery is completed. Use these as desired.
  1. Once the recovery has finished, allow the system to reboot. If you did not select the auto-restart option, X out of every window of the Acronis utility and the system will reboot. The OS of your recovered backup will now load.