Unable to resize secure zone

[rlprlp]

Hello- I just now sent an e-mail to tech support, but thought that I might try here, too. I have Acronis True Image Home 9.0, Build 3677. I have tried about 6 times so far this morning to increase the size of the secure zone without success. I have increased the size 2 or 3 times in the past without problems. My current secure zone is 11.67 GB, with 1.855 GB free. I have more than enough free space on my C drive (150.6 GB), and I have been attempting to increase the secure zone to 12.99 GB. Being that I do have so much free space, I would like to have about a 3 GB "buffer" for the secure zone. My PC executes all the steps, but after the reboot is complete, when I open Acronis to verify the partition size change, it does not show. It remains at 11.67 GB. I have an HP Pavilion a1220n with Windows XP Home, SP2. Any additional information that may be required will be happily given. Thank you in advance for your time.

[Menorcaman]

Hello rlprlp,

It shouldn't make any difference but, to rule out interference from other Windows apps, it might be worth booting from the Acronis rescue CD and trying to resize the SZ from within the Linux-based rescue environment.

Regards

[rlprlp]

I'll try that. But just for fun, even though you didn't recommend it specifically, based on what you're saying, I may see if it can be done in safe mode first. Thank you; will post back with results.

[rlprlp]

Safe mode did not work. However, the rescue disc did. (I believe that I selected the "safe" version, but I honestly don't recall if that was what it was called.) The operation even completed without a reboot. Interesting, though, was that after I rebooted to normal, my O/S came up that it had detected new hardware, and I had to reboot again. Now, may I ask for your "advice" rather than your "help"? This is not right, and being that I paid for this program, I am entitled to a fully functional product. I have a saved copy of the original download from when I first purchased Acronis (trueimage9.0.3677_s_en). Do you think that I should uninstall and then re-install, or wait until I hear back from tech support? Thank you again. Your "guess" was obviously a very educated one. An after-thought: If I do re-install, will I lose my secure zone archive?

[Menorcaman]

Hi again rlprlp,

Originally Posted by rlprlp

Do you think that I should uninstall and then re-install, or wait until I hear back from tech support?

An uninstall via Windows Control Panel's "Add or Remove Programs" followed by a reinstall often overcomes "weird" problems. Therefore, no harm in giving it a go.

If, after doing that, TI is still unable to resize the SZ from within Windows then you need to continue trouble shooting via Acronis Tech Support. It might help to post your Tech Support ticket number (contained in the autoreply email you received) so that one of the Acronis Support moderators can check on progress if need be.

An after-thought: If I do re-install, will I lose my secure zone archive?

No. The only way you will lose the archives in a SZ is by either removing the SZ via the Manage Acronis Secure Zone Wizard or deleting it via the Windows Disk Management applet (NOT recommended!!).

Regards

[rlprlp]

Okay, I'll do a re-install. That may do the trick, so I'll wait to see how it goes before posting my ticket number. Thank you, Menorcaman.

[jputter]

Are you running GoBack? Aconis True Image 9.0 Home and GoBack are incompatable. This can cause Secure Zone resizing problems. If so, you need to go into the GoBack program and toggle the disable button. I personally had major problems with the Secure Zone corrupting the master boot record when GoBack was enabled. Fortunately, I had a cloned drive and swapped drives to access the Windows operating system. My current backup routine is Acronis Full and Incremental backups to an internal slave E: drive and clone to the USB connected drive. This USB connected drive is an "internal" hard drive located in an external hard drive case. I turn off the USB connected drive immediately after cloning as Windows does not like to see two C: drives. Because the USB connected hard drive is an internal drive, I can swap drives if the master C: drive cannot be recovered. I also have tape backups and incremental CDRW backups for redundancy. I hope this helps. JSP

[jputter]

I am steering away from Acronis Secure Zone and the F11 reboot feature. It can corrupt your master boot record especially if GoBack is enabled! JSP

[Menorcaman]

Originally Posted by jputter

I am steering away from Acronis Secure Zone and the F11 reboot feature. It can corrupt your master boot record especially if GoBack is enabled! JSP

Hello jputter,

I wouldn't say TI "corrupts" the Master Boot Record (MBR). Activating the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (the F11 boot into rescue mode feature) causes TI to "overwrite" the existing MBR with it's own modified version. Clearly, this can conflict with other programs (e.g. Symantec GoBack) that rely on their own proprietary version of the MBR.

Regards