Need help Please!!!

[Federal Twist]

First, let me say I’m not an experienced software person, so I’m hoping someone would take a few minutes to help me out.
I purchased ATI because it was highly recommended and “Easy to Use”. I installed ATI 8.0 a while ago to back up my PC on an external hard drive. Seemed easy enough and I continued with incremental back ups. I “assumed” all was okay as I never had to restore.

I just bought a new PC and using Laplink I moved everything to my new PC. All worked except ATI, so I reinstalled ATI. I noticed that the start up recovery manager did not appear when the PC booted, so reading up I created a secure zone. It created successful but afterwards I noticed that my hard drive free space changed drastically. It went from 105GB free space to 50GB free space. I think the secure zone took up 48GB of the free space and I also think it is empty(?). I’m not even sure what questions to ask or what I should do next, but I’ll list a few and hope for the best. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

1. Should I have created or do I even need a secure zone on my hard drive?
2. If I should remove the secure zone, how do I do it and put the free space back to my “C” drive?
3. Anything else I should do?

[Ralphie]

1. You do not need the SZ if you're using an external drive to hold the Backups.

2. To remove the SZ, first make the Bootable Rescue CD from one of the menu items in the ATI software. Then boot with it and choose "Manage Acronis Secure Zone". There you will find the feature to delete the SZ and return the space to your C drive.

BTW, I prefer to use the Bootable Rescue CD to do all my Backup/Recover/Clone functions since you never know what Windows might have running in the background that will interfere with ATI.

[Federal Twist]

Thank you very much for taking the time to assist me. I was able to remove the SZ and return the space to the C drive. Again, thank's much......

[Ralphie]

Glad to hear it worked for you.