The bootable USB holds the software. Your external hard drive holds the backups. Never store your only backup on the same physical drive as your bootable media.
If you have specific RAID, NVMe, or network adapters, inject their Windows drivers into the WinPE version.
The Bootable ISO is essentially a self-contained, lightweight operating system based on Linux (or WinPE/WinRE in the Windows version). When you boot your computer from this ISO, you aren't loading your heavy, potentially corrupted Windows installation. Instead, you are loading a specialized environment designed purely for backup and recovery. acronis cyber protect home office bootable iso
Why is this interesting? It bypasses the "locks" of your operating system. Files that are usually "in use" and impossible to copy while Windows is running are completely accessible in this environment. It allows you to perform a "Bare Metal Restore"—the ability to take a hard drive image and blast it onto a brand-new, empty computer, instantly recreating your old system without needing to reinstall Windows, drivers, or applications.
Creating the ISO is only half the battle. Your computer is pre-programmed to boot from the internal hard drive first. You must override this. The bootable USB holds the software
Once booted from the ISO, the user gains access to a graphical console (or CLI) with the following capabilities:
Restart your computer. Immediately press the Boot Menu Key (commonly F12, F11, ESC, or F9 depending on your manufacturer—Dell, HP, Lenovo). Select your USB drive from the list. If you have specific RAID, NVMe, or network
Alternative: Enter BIOS/UEFI (usually F2 or DEL) and move "USB Drive" to the top of the boot order.