Cannot create Acronis secure zone

Edit:Most issues have been resolved. To save others reading time in this thread, I will soon make an index of the most relevant post's and I will locate that in my final post of the thread.
Dear People

I'm having a lot of trouble trying to create the secure zone. Every time I get an error msgbox error #1384.

I've done a lot of googling on the subject and have seen a lot of other people have this trouble, some responses by Acronis representatives, but no solutions..

My pc is a less than one week old HP laptop. It has a dual core 64 bit AMD processor, with vista home basic 32 bit and still the original factory install and 3 gigs of ram. ... I installed the latest Nod32 security suite which includes it's own anti-virus, anti-spy and firewall before ever connecting to the internet. Windows defender is disabled because Nod32 requires it to be. I then immediately installed Vista service pack 2, which I had an official copy of on DVD and after all that I connected to the internet and installed the other MS updates. My Acronis True Image build number is: 9709... that I know is the newest, as of two days ago.

This is my personal pc, and I live alone, so I know that it has not been tampered with and I have made no windows configuration changes.

(1) With my google searching, one top rated member at experts exchange suggested that it may be necessary to sign in as an administrator. Sounded hopeful, but unfortunately Vista home basic does not allow for and easy way to do that. (1.1) Then I found where another well qualified expert at experts exchange made a post on how to make some registry edits so I can boot and logon as the administrator, but still no luck.

(2) I found and ran the "run as administrator" (the built in vista program), but that also did not help.

(3) Then I purchased the acronis license and registered the product; still the same.

(4) I also scanned with nod32 and it showed me as clean and tried disconnecting from the internet and turned off Nod32 and it's firewall. Still no luck. Any ideas?

(5) The location's where I've tried creating it are (5.1) on my C partition, which has about 70 gigs of free space and (5.2) tried creating it on 40 gigs of unallocated space, (as I read in the help file that can be done), but when I try that I see the unallocated space but the check box is disabled. (5.3) I also created a partition using vista's partitioning tools and tried to create the Secure zone there, same error.

(6) I also tried disconnecting from the internet and disabling Nod32 and it's firewall; however that didn't help either.

Thanks in advance. I am happy with the product over all, but would really like to be able to restore at boot time.

Edit: Corrected the error number and my build number and my pc specs. And I reworded and rearranged the order of parts of what i wrote, in an attempt to make it clearer and easier to respond to .

 

tboltfrank:

How many partitions are currently on your hard disk? Could you post a screen shot from Vista Disk Management showing your current disk layout?

If you've never done this before, click on the Vista Start button and type "Comp". The first search result that should appear at the top of the Window is "Computer Management". Click on it and after it opens, click on "Disk Management" in the left pane. Expand the window to see all of the columns until you see something resembling this picture:



Then attach a picture of your disk to your reply. If you haven't done this before, here is a method that will work. While the Disk Management window is active, hold down the "ALT" key and click the "PrintScreen" or "PrtScn" key to copy a graphic image of the window to the clipboard. Open the Windows Paint program (Start, type "Paint", click on "Paint") and choose "Paste" from the Edit menu. Then save the file to your desktop as a JPEG file.

To attach the file to your reply, click on "Manage Attachments" in the "Additional Options" area below the "Reply to Thread" window on the forum and upload your file as an attachment.

 

Thanks for the responce Mark. I will post that info and an image as you requested, as soon as I can manage to recover my computer.

I thought I had found a work around in that when I tried to do a one click protect, with the location set to a partition that did not have enough free space, acronis defaulted to the secure zone. So perhaps the zone was already there, I don't really know.

I then clicked proceed I then received a message box instructing me that the process requires a reboot, I clicked ok, then it rebooted to a dos like screen showing progress of acronis resizing a partition and I'm not sure what the other steps were, but I think it was about three processes and they lasted about 40 minutes or more. I was in the room with my eye on it for at least the first 20 minutes and all was progressing fine.

I then left the room for about 30 minutes and when I returned, my pc was booted up and working, with the desktop only showing and functioning normally. At least I think thats the case, I'm a little tired now, so maybe acronis might have still been open. If it was, I followed the next instructions. I certainly did not interupt anything. At least not anything that was visibly happening.

Soon there after, I rebooted my machine. However now it will not boot. All I get is BOOTMGR missing does like screen, that tells me to press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart. When I do that, it goes back to the same BOOTMGR is missing message. F11 and Cntrl F11 both also do nothing.

The good news is that there is a backup on the hard drive, I just have to manage to get to it and use it.

I have a second pc with acronis installed right next to this one, if that will help me at all, just let me know. Such as perhaps I should create a acronis boot disk with that. Whats your advice for the best way for me to get to my backup and run it?

Oh, and there are three visible partitions, and the secure zone would be a fourth, which as you know is hidden. The D partition used to have my HP restore files, but sadly I previously deleted those.

Thanks for your help..

 

Your thread reminded me that I was not able to create the Secure zone either so I tried again and it worked! here is what I did:
When I try to create the Secure Zone it shows my disk allocated to an NTSF, a Fat 16 and a Fat 32 partition and an unallocated partition checked but shaded out. apparently you need to select one of the unchecked partitions. I tried checking each partition individually and then tried to create the zone. When I checked the FAT 32 partition it created the Zone!
Let me know how it goes.

 

If you have a Vista DVD, the easiest way to fix your laptop right now is to boot it from the Vista DVD and run an automatic repair. Your current problem is just an incorrect pointer in the Boot Configuration Database (BCD), which should be easy to fix.

 

Thanks geklingel
All my partitions are NTSF, but perhaps in the future I might try reformatting one of them to Fat32, to see if what you did will also work for me.

You were posting at the same time that I was re-posting, so now when you revisit this thread, you will see that my troubles have worsened.

Fortunately though, I have a backup and I have faith that Mark or someone else here, will instruct me as what is the simplest way to get to it and use it.

 

Thanks Mark, but HP no longer supplies restore DVD's and I had not gotten around to making one yet. What about using something like BartPe? Which I unfortunately know nothing about.

Or if all else fails, i will remove my HP laptop hard drive, insert the hard drive into a usb 2.5 encloser, plug that into my other pc,,,, copy the backup to the 2nd pc ,,,, then I should be able to run the backup restore, with the usb encloser as the destination, and when finished, pop the hard drive back into my HP and be back in business..... I hope...

It would be nice though if there is something simpler that I can try first.

 

Do you have a Vista DVD from another PC? Or, can you borrow one from a friend? You only need it to run a quick repair from the DVD, not to install Vista, so a DVD with any edition of Vista will do.

If you can't come up with a Vista DVD then you will need to do a TI restore, so your next step is to make an Acronis recovery CD on your other PC. If you haven't done this already, use the Bootable Media Builder application on the other PC to make an Acronis recovery CD.

Post back when you either get a Vista DVD or after you have made an Acronis recovery CD. If at all possible, try to borrow a Vista DVD. Now is not a good time to be testing a restore with TI if you've never done one before.

 

Thanks Mark, for the quick reply,

Unfortunately none of my friends tinker with computers, so I do not have access to a vista disk. I hear loud and clear what you are saying about trying to use the Acronis boot disk when I have no experience with it. But I think trying that will be easier than my other ideas. I will post back after I have made the acronis boot disk. Not sure when that will be, as I have to go out and buy some blank disks, and I need to rest now. Will you be around about 6 hours from now? If not, when will you be back later?

 

Yes, I will be around and am glad to try to help. Also, there are a lot of other helpful forum contributors here who can help you do a TI restore.

Here are a couple of things to consider while you're contemplating a shopping trip. First, if you are going to restore a TI backup image, where is it presently stored? It will be most convenient if you have it on an external USB hard disk that can be plugged into your HP laptop. Lacking that, the next best alternative is if you have it stored on your other PC and the two PCs are connected to a home network. But for TI to recover a file across the network, both PCs must be connected with wired Ethernet. Wireless will not work in the TI recovery environment.

Finally, and not to beat a dead horse, here is an article about repairing Vista. Step one in the article describes how to download the Vista repair image and make your own Vista recovery CD if you do not have access to a Vista DVD. Please consider that first. Your problem is just a bad entry in the Vista BCD and is quite simple to fix with the right tool. Fixing it this way does not risk any of your current Vista install on the laptop. Yes, TI can fix the problem too by restoring a backup image, and it will work marvelously 99% of the time. We will definitely help you try this if it's necessary, but first consider the simple BCD repair.

 

Edit: No need to respond to my question about Windows 7, I just saw your last post now.. thanks.. I will investigate the repair image download.

Do you think the Windows 7 rc1 , (the newest Windows) would work for the repair?

It can be downloaded for free trial at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Just thought I'd ask

 

I think so, although I've never tried it. Give me a minute to reboot my PC from a Win7 DVD to see.

 

That was a great idea but unfortunately it won't work. The Win7 RC1 DVD does contain a repair image, but when I selected my Vista SP2 installation to repair, the result was an error message stating that the version of Windows was incompatible. So you will need a Vista repair image.

 

I do appreciate you checking that.It increases my knowledge .. The Vista repair download that you linked to, sounds good.

How about a vista upgrade disk? can I do the repair with that? Those are less than $100 and I might not mind shelling that out, as it likely wil come in handy having that in my arsenal.

 

As far as I know, all Vista Upgrade DVDs contain the repair image, so that should work. If you have one, try it. Purchasing one is another issue. With Win 7 about to be released, you may not want to spend money on what will soon be "last year's model", but it's up to you. The Vista repair image download that you need now is free.

 

Point well taken. I'm working on it now, although I guess I need to revisit the instructions at the link, as I had thought it would be an ISO file and I've worked with those before. . but I just downloaded it and found to my dismay that the extension is .iso.torrent.

No need to respond though unless its simple. I am happy to revisit the instructions and the link you provided. I will post back in a few minutes if I am not clear on it, after I read it again.

 

Hope that repair disk iso will fit on a cd, as my other computer only burns cd's

Still trying to understand though how to work with a torrent file. I expect that it will make sense soon. Hope to be back to post success within the next 30 minutes or less....

 

I found that the iso.torrent file is only a short cut for downloading the file from a torrent location. I downloaded and used utorrent for that and now have the iso file. ..

Hope that utorrent isn't full of spyware. Have you heard of it?

I'm far too exhausted to continue more now.. , I'll get some rest now and be off to the store later to purchase a CD writable disk. .. I'll be back in about 4 to 5 hours.

Thanks again for your help Mark

 

I'm back now...

I rested a for a few hours, and then went out and purchased some cdr's and successfully made the repair disk from the iso.

I have also succesfully booted to the Windows screen and am ready with the Windows Vista Install Now screen in front of me.

Now I'm going to pull up the intructions on how to repair the Bootmgr from that link you gave me. I'll be back in a matter of minutes to report how it's going...

 

Well, I guess I'm an idiot, because when I selected the repair option as instructed I did not get the same dialog box of options that the instruction's show an image of. It did do a quick scan and report that it found problems with the boot files and gave the option only to repair or cancel. I selected repair and the result did not fix the problem.

Now I'm following the step three instructions. Where it says what to do if the first repair fails.. . However, again the screen I get does not give the choices that they show. But by skipping the option to load drivers and clicking the select button, I am at the screen that is described below.

So far, so good...........
For reference the text below highlighted in blue is a copy of the step three instructions.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. This time, we're going to select the "Command Prompt" option and try to manually tell the Vista Recovery Console what needs to be fixed. Chances are, this is as far as you'll have to go; hopefully it'll get the job done.

Go ahead and select "Command Prompt" from that list, and you should get a window not dis-similar to the one you see when run cmd.exe from Windows.

I'll report back in a mater of a few minutes with my progress....

 

Did you try running the automatic repair more than once? It can only fix one problem at a time, so run it two or three times to see if it can find them all.

If not, proceed to the command prompt and type the following:

Code:

bcdedit

This will display the output of your Boot Configuration Database (BCD). See if you can get that far...

 

I will now..

I also am going to check in bios settings to hopefully determine my cd drive letter, because I have to know that in case I have to follow the step three instructions..

Be back shortly to report.

Thanks Mark

 

Don't do step 3 in the article. Your MBR and boot sector are OK since you are getting the error message "BOOTMGR is missing". That means that the MBR code works and has found the active partition and has passed control to it. The error message is contained in the boot sector of your Vista partition, so you're halfway there.

If the automatic repair doesn't work then just go to the command prompt and type BCDEDIT and we'll go from there.

 

Thanks a milliion Mark.. The second repair did the trick. Even the dialogs were as expected with that second boot to the repair cd

Now on to trying to get a secure zone and restore image in it. Do you think that because HP uses the F11 key for their restore, which Acronis also uses.. Could that possibly be why I ran into trouble? As I described in my early posts, I did delete the HP restore files that had been in the D partition, so that partition is now empty. Or is it bad that I have three partitions?(not including the acronis secure zone)

 

Good. The repair has fixed the entries in your BCD so you're back in business.

You probably activated the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (ASRM). That's the special Acronis MBR that produces the "Press F11..." message at boot time. You don't need this. You can have a secure zone without it. In fact, you may already have a Secure Zone on the disk. We shall see.

To go from here, let's continue with the screen shot of your disk layout as suggested in post #2.