Acronis 10 Home

I run Win XP-Pro and my boot drive is a WD raptor SATA 150GB. When I create a boot disc in Acronis 10 or if I boot off the Acronis install disc I get a message:

ATA – Disabling port.

And that all that happens. I have created an image on an external USB drive as a back up for my C drive but if I cant boot off the disk what is the point if my C: drive fails ?

Am I doing something wrong ??