611 secure zone "trashed" ??

I was liking true image 7.0 a_lot, and installed build 611 which seemed to work fine, at one point I installed acronis image to my w2k c\ and that worked fine, and then problems started. acronis bkup is to 2d physical 120 gb hdd (maxtor) with about 80 gb used for acronis secure zone and the balance NTFS misc bkup area. I made a bkup ok and then came tried again about 11 hours later and I got a message that Error (redX) failed to read from sector 70,613,803 of hard disk 2, and when I ignore I get another sector no. and when I "ignore all" true image just seems to spin do nothing. I cannot change the secure zone, I cannot delete the secure zone, so I'm in limbo with true image, basically not functioning. so then I figured since it is somehow locked_up, I'll uninstall it, and I can reformat hdd2, reinstall acronis and start from scratch. well uninstalling acronis did not remove the F11 acronis boot manager, and reformatting hdd2 only reformatted the NTFS area and not the secure zone. if I physically remove hdd2 from box, (hdd2 is on a removeable caddy (worked well with Ghost)) since I installed acronis w2k will not boot if hdd2 is not in the box. so then I reinstalled true image and I'm back to square1, with the failed to read from sector 70,613,803 of hard disk 2 series of errors and acronis just spinning and I cannot access any features. seems that I cannot make it run, I cannot FULLY uninstall it, I cannot wipe hdd2 and I must have hdd2 in the box. I tend to doubt that hdd2 really has bad sectors, I think that something got corrupted with true image in the secure zone, and the app will not run correctly and it seems I cannot undo it. I sent a message to acronis support 92 hours ago and have not rec'd any reply. I'm become less and less enthralled with acronis. as a general concept I would expect that uninstalling an app would FULLY uninstall it, including its F11 boot manager and its secure zone. basically acronis seems to have tied my box up in a knot that seems not so easily untied. any ideas, right now, I'd like to FULLY remove it, along with secure zone on hdd2, wipe and format hdd2 and reinstall true image and start over. how do I get there from here?

 

Hello --

Thank you for taking the time to contact us and for your interest in Acronis
True Image (http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/)!

You can remove Acronis Secure Zone through "Manage Acronis Secure Zone" option in the product. After you remove the zone, you can uninstall Acronis True Image, then you can run Checkdisk in order to eliminate the errors on your drive if any, then resintall it back and create the zone again.

Thank you.

--
Anton Gromov

Acronis, Inc.
395 Oyster Point Blvd., Suite 213
South San Francisco, CA 94080 USA
http://www.acronis.com

Acronis Support Department
e-mail: support@acronis.com

Acronis... Compute With Confidence

 

you wrote:
You can remove Acronis Secure Zone through "Manage Acronis Secure Zone" option in the product. After you remove the zone, you can uninstall Acronis True Image, then you can run Checkdisk in order to eliminate the errors on your drive if any, then resintall it back and create the zone again.

that IS the problem! I cannot do this(?) I think the bad sector error refers somehow to the secure zone and when I go to "manage" it appears to me that app thinks the secure zone is full and it seems to be greyed_out and I seem to have no option to delete the secure zone. I read the manual and I concur with your approach, that is what I was thinking, delete the secure zone, uninstall/reinstall check the hdd2, etc. but everything seems locked up by the reported bad sector on hdd2. I cannot delete secure zone. how do I "force" the deletion of the secure zone? I need more details as the normal approach outlined in the manual is not working. PS. I sent support a private email on thursday 13may early in morning with all the info and rec'd no reply.

 

Hello --

I'll find your e-mail in our support query and will keep the further conversation through our system, as it is more convenient and will allow us to solve the problem faster. After we will get a solution - we can post it here.

Thank you.

--
Best regards,
Anton Gromov

Acronis, Inc.
395 Oyster Point Blvd. Suite 213
South San Francisco
CA 94080 USA
http://www.acronis.com/

Acronis... Compute with confidence

 

I eagerly await your private reply. FYI, I by now I've sent 3 emails to support with the first on 13may. I think most of the info was echoed here. in addition to the "bad sector_inability to delete secure zone problem" it seems this is causing an "event" in w2k at boot as it is now reporting a system error related to hdds (not clear hdd1 or hdd2) but all the normal tools find no problems on either hdd. if the system error is relevant I will post it here as we solve the problem(s), thanks.

 

Anton, just checking back in now 20may 6:30 UTC. since your above post, it appears that another two full 8 hour business days have passed and I have rec'd no direct email from support@acronis. the 1st support msg I sent was early morning 13may, followed by 2 more msgs as I gathered more info re this problem. from your above post I was expecting a private reply later in the day on 18may. I cannot be the first person with a somehow seemingly corrupted secrue zone that cannot be deleted by normal methods. eagerly awaiting a fix, as this problem has my box "locked_up" and non_bkup'd.

 

Hi, poogimmal

Do not know if I can help, but I read Your post a few time's and I am thinking your Master Boot Record as been alter in some way.

So if you would like to try to have ago at fixing it try this:-

Disconnect HDD2 IDE Cable.[Turn off auto fine in the Bios to it, Easer]

Boot from your OS CD>When you get to the insall screen choose>Rapair Windows XP [2000] Installion useing the Recovery Console, Press R.

Press R>
Then Type 1 [ONE]>
Then Enter your Password the one that you installed with. [Administer]

Then at Windows>_
[Dos Prompt] Type>
FIXMBR>then when it ask if you are sure>Type Y.>
Press Enter.
Type Exit and REBOOT.

Hope this work's then.
Then Reconnect the IDE Cable back to HDD2, OR Reset the Auto find for HDD2 and Then Wipe it.

The Best of Luck.
TheQuest

 

yes, I think that MBR corruption is at least some possibility. my acronis secure zone is 80 gb on physical hdd2 120 gb that is on a InClose removeable caddy. prior to acronis, I used a 60 gig physcial hdd2 and would backup with Ghost and then remove hdd2 from box (that's pretty secure BUT with the creation of acronis secure zone on the 120 gig and implimentation of acronis F11 emergency boot manager, w2k requires hdd2 to be in the box in order to boot. at this point I don't know if that is a function of acronis itself or the secure zone or its boot manager or any combination of above. since when acronis opens it reads "bad sector" it is not properly "digesting" the secure zone and therefore I cannot delete the secure zone, cannot remove the F11 boot manager. so I'm afraid of trying a low level wipe of hdd2 fearing then that w2k would not boot at all. right now w2k seems very stable only problem on the box is this 3-way acronis problem. "bad sector", cannot delete secure zone, cannot remove F11... I will take your suggestion under consideration. meanwhile, another day came and went and STILL no private reply from acronis tech. but reading some here, I NOW see that problem is systemic. seems like a great app when it is working ok, but for something so intense to the system, seems some aspects of acronis are not well_fail_safe'd if & when this problem gets fixed, I would not trust acronis again until I understand how and why it happened. the last message from acronis prior to the problem starting was that the bkup had been successful. or don't believe everything you read.

 

Hi, poogimmal

I a have a very simler set up as You, If you read my Signature but it will not all fit the Forum Signature.

ThIs is my signature from another Forum I Quote:-

I have Raid0 on the 2x80GB SATA and the 3x80GB are sort's, one I use for Ti7 Image's.

The 3x80GB Maxtor PATA133 are In ViPower UDMA133 Mobile Super Racks.

I did try the F11 and secure zone but found it to messy and unsure.

Plus if the HDD get corrupt or something you might lost the lot [IN Raid0 The Lot is lost anyway] so I decided not to use it. [I usely wipe my drive's once every two ao three month's anyway and put an Image back.]

If you try the FIXMBR fix it should not make it worse only better.

As I Posted in the Post When Raid0.

But some wait loger then other's
TheQuest

 

hummm I SHOULD have contacted you BEFORE using secure zone and F11! unrelated sideissue, I have some DCS apps, but Process Guard will not run correctly, or I get irregular black_screen_crash_reboots with it, so that plus this current acronis problem has me even closer to clean wipe and reinstallation of this box. some folks are pushing for XP_pro, rather than w2k_sp4 but I dunno?? might depend on how one intends to use the box. And most of another day has passed and I have rec'd no private email from acronis support. I now think of acronis Ti7.0 as beta_ware. I find it curious that Ti could gain recommendations when its support seems nonexistant.

 

Hello Poogimmal --

I apologize for the delay with a responce. Just some investigation was going about yoru case, please check - there should be an e-mail from Acronis Support with the further instructions.

Thank you for your patience.

--
Best regards,
Anton Gromov

Acronis, Inc.
395 Oyster Point Blvd. Suite 213
South San Francisco
CA 94080 USA
http://www.acronis.com/

Acronis... Compute with confidence

 

I resolved the problem with help from others here and elsewhere. as suggested above, something had corrupted the MBR and for now the best evidence is that this was caused by acronis true image either directly or indirectly (due to a failure to unistall itself once the acronis secure zone became corrupted). after we used MS Recovery Console to "FIXMBR" we then used Maxtor software that came with hdd to boot into DOS and do a low level full reformat which took 16+ hours, and that did repair the "bad sector(s)" caused by acronis. (physically & firmware_wise the hdd is 100% AOK). now all is back to normal except that acronis remains uninstalled until I better understand what happened. also a above msg suggested not using acronis secure zone, and that was also the recommendation of another tech, so if and when I do reinstall acronis I will not be using the secure zone. of course, I am open to the possibilty that somehow some malcode got into this box and corrupted both the MBR and the acronis secure zone, but there is no evidence of that. the good news throughout this ordeal was that I lost no data, and the hdd that was corrupted was a 2d physical and not the primary. meanwhile I rec'd a newsletter from acronis telling me that true image was PC Mag Editor's Choice (June 2004). it would be nice & better if acronis support sent out msgs and replies as fast as the acronis sales dept.

 

Hi, poogimmal

Re; this and your other post MBR modification

Should have told you about that warning in my post about how to fix the mbr, Sorry.

Glad to see it all fixed now.
Take care,
TheQuest