Creating bootable media

Bootable media is a CD, DVD, USB flash drive, or other removable media that enables you to run the agent without the help of an operating system. The main purpose of bootable media is to recover an operating system that cannot start.

We highly recommend that you create and test a bootable media as soon as you start using disk-level backup. Also, it is a good practice to re-create the media after each major update of the backup agent.

You can recover either Windows or Linux by using the same media. To recover macOS, create a separate media on a machine running macOS.

To create bootable media in Windows or Linux

1. Download the bootable media ISO file. To download the file, click the account icon in the top-right corner > Downloads > Bootable media.
2. Do any of the following:
   • Burn a CD/DVD using the ISO file.
   • Create a bootable USB flash drive by using the ISO file and one of the free tools available online.

     Use ISO to USB or RUFUS if you need to boot an UEFI machine, Win32DiskImager for a BIOS machine. In Linux, using the dd utility makes sense.

   • Connect the ISO file as a CD/DVD drive to the virtual machine that you want to recover.

Alternatively, you can create bootable media by using Bootable Media Builder.

To create bootable media in macOS

1. On a machine where Agent for Mac is installed, click Applications > Rescue Media Builder.
2. The software displays the connected removable media. Select the one that you want to make bootable.

   Warning  All data on the disk will be erased.

3. Click Create.
4. Wait while the software creates the bootable media.