Acronis Secure Zone - Getting Started

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by stas05, Aug 21, 2005.

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  1. stas05

    stas05 Registered Member

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    My hard drive is 4 years old and I expect it to fail eventually. Until that happens I would like to always keep a backup of my PC's hard drive on an external hard drive.

    I have just installed Acronis True Image 8.0.

    1. Should I set up my Acronis Secure Zone on the external hard drive? My reasoning, is that if my PC's hard drive fails, the Acronis Secure Zone will still be intact on the external hard drive. If I do, will I be able to restore my old hard drive's image on a brand new hard drive?

    2. Once my old hard drive fails, and I get a new hard drive, will installing the OS, then installing Acronis True Image and running the recovery off of the external drive (where the Acronis Secure Zone is going to be) be the right course of action?

    I've been reading the guide,the FAQ section and some of this forum, but I still wanted to make sure that I'm doing the right thing.

    Thank you in advance for your help/advice.

    Stas
     
  2. THoff

    THoff Guest

    Putting the Secure Zone on an external drive can cause the Secure Zone Manager to stall or hang if the drive is not turned on or accessible. For this reason Acronis does not recommend putting the Secure Zone on an external drive.

    If you need to restore because of a drive failure, you will not have to install the OS first -- that's the point of creating complete images. Simply boot from the Recovery CD that True Image can create, select the image, and restore it to the new drive.
     
  3. stas05

    stas05 Registered Member

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    Thank you THoff,

    I might be wrong, but I thought that where one creates the Secure Zone, that's where all the images are going to be stored. My hard drive has only one partition - C:. So If I create the Secure Zone on the C: drive, and the drive fails, I won't be able to recover. Does this sound right?
     
  4. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello stas05,

    Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Please note that there is no need to create Acronis Secure Zone on your external hard drive, since images are usual files and can be stored in only folder on your external hard drive.

    Please also note that storing your images on the external hard drive is safe enough. I would recommend you to unplug the drive after you have created an image and keep it in a safe place untill you will need to restore your image.

    Thank you.
    --
    Alexey Popov
     
  5. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    In itself, creating a Secure Zone on an external hard drive isn't a problem. It's when you also activate the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager that you will run into difficulty if the external drive is switched off or disconnected during system boot.

    The only (sane?) reason I can see for wanting a SZ on an external drive is that the SZ automatically limits the number of incrementals to a full image that you can create in it. See this previous <Acronis Support reply> for details on how the SZ manages its space.

    Regards
     
  6. stas05

    stas05 Registered Member

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    Thank you Alexei and Menorcaman.
     
  7. Clayton Curtis

    Clayton Curtis Registered Member

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    That "only (sane?) reason" is, however, a big one. It appears to be the only way that one can automatically manage periodic full backup + incremental backups. One variation, of course, is the use of a second hard drive on the same machine vs. a true external drive.
     
  8. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Clayton Curtis,

    Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Please note that using Acronis Secure Zone is not the only way to "automatically manage periodic full backup + incremental backups".

    For example, you can do the following:

    - Schedule monthly full backup (e.g. on the 1st day);

    - Schedule incremental daily backup;

    As a result on the 1st day of every month full backup image will be overwritten. On the 2nd day an incremental image will be created, the second volume of the mage(previous second volume will be overwritten) etc.

    On 15th day you'll have 1 full image and 14 subsequent incrementals.

    Thank you.
    --
    Alexey Popov
     
  9. radman2020

    radman2020 Registered Member

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    sorry for my ignorance... but:

    I have my backup file on one of my external hard drives. I have a second image on a second external.. I alternate full backups.

    What does the safe zone do for me? Why do I need it? Thanks..
     
  10. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello radman2020,

    Acronis Secure Zone is a special, hidden system partition for storing disk and partition images. Ordinary applications can’t access it, for image security purposes. If you create an image on the same disk (partition), we recommend you to store an image in the Acronis Secure Zone. But if you create an image to the external hard drive, you don't need Acronis Secure Zone.

    Thank you.
    --
    Irina Shirokova
     
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