Creating an Acronis bootable media

Acronis bootable media is a physical media (CD, DVD, USB flash drive, or other media supported by the machine’s BIOS as a boot device) that contains bootable components of Acronis Snap Deploy 4.

Acronis Snap Deploy 4 bootable media supports both BIOS and UEFI architecture.

You can create an Acronis bootable media containing one or more of the following bootable components:

Acronis Snap Deploy 4 Agent
Acronis Snap Deploy 4 Master Image Creator
Acronis Snap Deploy 4 Standalone Utility
Acronis System Report

To create a bootable media

Start the management console.
On the Tools menu, click Create bootable media.
Select the bootable components that will be placed on the media.
For example, if you select Acronis Snap Deploy 4 Agent and Acronis Snap Deploy 4 Master Image Creator, you will be able to use such bootable media to perform deployment by using Acronis Snap Deploy 4 OS Deploy Server, and to create a master image.

Selecting bootable components
Under When booting from the media, automatically start, select the component that will start automatically after a time-out you specify. Such component is also referred to as the default boot menu item. The possible choices are the following:
- One of the components on the media: The component will start after the time-out.
- No autostart: The Acronis loader will display the boot menu and wait for someone to select whether to boot the operating system or one of the Acronis components.
- Start operating system: The operating system, if present on the booting machine’s hard disk, will start after the time-out. This option is designed to make the target machine boot into the deployed operating system after deployment. The main usage scenario is as follows.
  You use this wizard to configure the PXE server for deployment on a schedule. You set up Acronis Snap Deploy 4 Agent to start automatically. After the deployment is completed, the target machine reboots into the agent again and might be deployed by another deployment operation. How to avoid this situation?
  
  To ensure that the target machine boots into the deployed operating system after the deployment, choose the Start operating system option in this step of the wizard. To ensure that the target machine boots into the agent before the deployment, tune the PXE server to work with your deployment server when setting up the deployment.
  
  Note: When booting from media, automatically start option does not apply when Acronis bootable media loads in the UEFI mode.
Under Start automatically after, specify the time-out interval in seconds. For example, if you choose to automatically start Acronis Snap Deploy 4 Agent, and set this parameter to 10, the agent will launch 10 seconds after the boot menu is displayed.
If you are placing Acronis Snap Deploy 4 Agent on the media, specify whether the agent will connect to a particular Acronis Snap Deploy 4 OS Deploy Server. This setting allows you to have multiple deployment servers that perform different functions on the same network.
To specify a deployment server, type its name or IP address in Server name/IP.

Note: Acronis bootable media uses NetBIOS networking protocol to resolve Acronis Snap Deploy 4 OS Deploy Server in a network. NetBIOS protocol uses ANSI characters for host names. So, machines that have non-English characters in their names cannot be accessed from Acronis bootable media. If the name of the Acronis Snap Deploy 4 OS Deploy Server machine contains non-English characters, use the machine's IP-address to specify it in the network.

The deployment server (along with the network settings for the agent) can also be specified onsite (on the target machine’s side) when booting the agent. To be able to configure the agent onsite, set up a reasonable delay before the default network settings will be applied. For details, see “Booting the target machines”.

If not configured in either way, the deployment server will be found automatically. The agent will start the search after the number of seconds you specify in Timeout (sec).

Settings for Acronis Snap Deploy 4 Agent

The option to save the agent’s log to the deployment server is designed primarily for troubleshooting. The log will be available on the deployment server in the following folder: %AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\Acronis\DeployServer\AgentsLogs
Select the type of bootable media to create. You can:
- Create a CD, a DVD, or other media such as a USB flash drive if the hardware BIOS allows for booting from such media.
- Create an ISO image of a bootable disc to burn it later onto a blank disc or writing it to a USB flash drive.
- Upload the selected components to Acronis PXE server. The previously uploaded components will be deleted from the PXE server before uploading the newly selected ones.
  Note: Acronis Snap Deploy 4 Standalone Utility can be placed on a physical media only. This component is not designed to boot from a PXE server.
If you have chosen to create a physical media, insert a blank disc (so the software can determine its capacity) or attach a USB flash drive.

If you have chosen to create an ISO image of a bootable disc, specify the name of the ISO file and the folder in which to place it.

If you have chosen to upload the components to a PXE server, specify the name of the machine with the PXE server and provide the user name and password of an administrator on that machine.
[Optional.] Protect the components being uploaded to the PXE server with a password to prevent the components from unauthorized execution. The password prompt will come up when selecting a bootable component. No password is required to start the operating system on the machine.

Protecting the bootable components with a password
Click Create. After you create the disc, mark it and keep it in a safe place.

Note: Components on an Acronis bootable media are based on a Linux kernel and are equipped with the Linux system and device drivers. Acronis regularly supplements the driver set with drivers for new devices. However, there may be a chance of drivers being incompatible with your hardware, so a bootable component cannot start, stops responding or cannot access the necessary device. In this case, consider creating a WinPE-based bootable media instead.