Rescue Disk Media

[Norton]

I understand how to recover a drive using bootable recovery rescue media and backup disk images. I have 3 PC's, can I use one USB bootable recovery thumb drive created on PC1 on any of my 3 PC's to recover from separate backup images
Are bootable recovery drives machine specific?
Thanks!

 

[Bighorn]

Not usually, they are intended only for getting a computer booted up. I still have floppy disks for booting DOS computers, even some made in the days of Win95/98/ME. But the process is much different now than 'back then' with the hardware such as UEFI, GPT, MBR, BIOS, etc.

 

[Clintlgm]

Well yes at least with Macrium Reflect, since when you create the rescue USB the hardware drivers for your specific computer and loaded on that USB. Might work on other computers or maybe not. Notebooks are more fussy about drivers than desktops

 

[Norton]

Bighorn-Clintlgm Thanks for the heads up. The 2 desktops are identical so one USB should work. I'll create another just for the laptop.

 

[Trouble]

I only have somewhat limited experience, dealing almost solely with Acronis True Image over the past several years, but...…
I have Acronis rescue media on DVD and USB thumb drive and have used it on a vast number of computers over the years without any issues. It pretty much uses generic drivers for keyboard mouse and monitor which have always been sufficient to get the task done.

I cannot remember a single instance where I ran into any problems booting a machine with that media, creating an image or booting the machine and recovering a previously created image.

Acronis makes new versions annually, usually designated by a Year (2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, etc.) and additionally within each version they will generally have build updates.
I have five computers with five different versions and builds. I routinely use the newest version to generate my rescue media and have yet to run into any backward compatibility issues when recovering images that might have been created using earlier versions.

I can remember years ago, there were instances where Acronis 6 or Acronis 7 or perhaps before those versions where you could run into problems using one version to attempt a restore of an image created with a different version.
That doesn't seem to be the case any longer.

 

[Norton]

Trouble Thanks! That's what I was thinking, the drivers are generic for the boot process and good for any PC. I always update my rescue media when we get a new build version of Windows. I also believe windows install media will boot any PC.

 

[Trouble]

The only likely problem you might run into is with UEFI (safe boot) versus Legacy BIOS.
The boot media needs to support either one or the other or both.