I was trying to figure out the same thing, how to do a recovery. It appears that Acronis works best for a bootable recovery, by cloning to a seperate physical hard drive instead of just imaging, (cloning being the preferred vs imaging)as per the response to these questions answered by Acronis:
My hard drive is partitioned in two, C: and D: If I image C to D, in
> case of failure of C, can Acronis True Image create a bootable
> floppy disk whereby I can select the boot from D instead of C?
>
You can not boot from the image. You can boot from Acronis Bootable
Media and restore the image on its original place and then boot your
computer from your C: partition.
> Are all working programs able to run from the compressed image on D,
> because of the compression and not being a true clone?
>
You can not run application from the image. You can restore needed
files if you mount an image as a logical drive or using Recovery wizard.
> If I clone C to D, and Acronis names D as C in the cloning process,
> after cloning can Acronis allow me to rename the cloned partition
> D, and allow me to create a bootable floppy disk, that allows me
to
> boot from either C of D?
>
You can not clone from one partition to another using Acronis True
Image. You can only clone from one drive (the whole drive) to another
drive.
You can create an image and then restore this image on another
partition. Please be aware if you want to make this partition bootable you need
to use Microsoft System Preparation Tool before creating an image.
Please follow the next link to get more information about this tool:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/faq/clone-windows-to-hardware/
> If I install a second hard drive as slave, when I clone C to the
slave
> will it name the hard drive C? My idea is to unhhok the slave
after
> imaging and in case of failure of C, to remove C and physically
> replace it with the imaged drive.
>
Yes, you can clone your drive to another drive and then remove your new
drive. Please be aware that you need to remove your cloned drive after
cloning and before loading Windows OS. You need to do that in order not
to make partition letters mixed that may cause Windows OS to have some
problems while booting.
> Are there provisions in Acronis to leave the imaged slave hooked up,
> and to create a bootable floppy disk, and in case of failure of C,
> to allow boot from the cloned slave?
>
You can create Acronis Bootable Media that you can use to restore the
images. This media can be also used to clone your drive to another one.