How do I manually delete Secure Zone?

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by eskimo737, Apr 17, 2006.

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  1. eskimo737

    eskimo737 Registered Member

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    I am having trouble re-installing TI9 and decided to start from the beginning by uninstalling TI9. I used the Windows 98 add/remove programs but when I tried to re-install TI9 it would hang up on the "installing" screen with all "blue bars" filled in. I went through the steps to manually uninstall found on this forum but to no avail. The 1st step though says to delete Secure Zone with wizard or manually. I cannot access the wizard and do not know how to delete it manually. I don't know if this is why it won't install again or not. I do not get the screen requesting the serial number of the cd even after uninstalling everything I can think of. Please help!
     
  2. whocrazy

    whocrazy Registered Member

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    Hi there. boot up to dos and use the windows fdisk program to delete the extended partition. Hopefully this should delete it.
     
  3. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Apr 28, 2004
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    Hello eskimo737,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    First of all, please make sure that you try to install the latest build (3567) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home which is available at: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/updates/

    You can find the full version name and build number by right-clicking on the installation file, going to it's Properties and looking at "Version" tab.

    To get access to updates you should create an account at:
    http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/
    then log in and use your serial number to register your software.

    If the problem still persists with the latest build (3567) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home then please try installing the latest version of Acronis drivers first (install it with disabled logging) and only after that try to install the software itself.

    If that does not help either then please do the following:

    - Launch the product installation file;

    - Right-click on the "Install Acronis True Image" button and select "Extract";

    - Select the path for extracting the component and click "Save";

    - Go to the Run prompt (Start -> Run) and issue the following command:

    msiexec /i msi-name /l*v log-name

    Where msi-name is the name of the file you extracted in steps 2-3 and log-name is the path and the name to the log file you want to save the output to;

    - Reproduce the problem and collect the log file created during the installation.

    Please also create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

    Please submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution as soon as possible.

    Thank you.
    --
    Alexey Popov
     
  4. eskimo737

    eskimo737 Registered Member

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    I have now completely reformatted my hard drive and reloaded all my software but when I tried to load Acronis TI9 the same thing happened. I still get message: "Acronis True Image Home is being installed. Please wait..." and all of the blue progress bars are filled in.

    I have tried all the steps you recommended, install with build 3567, install Acronis drivers and reattempted - exact same result:oops: . I will be sending you, Acronis support the requested troubleshooting info.
     
  5. whocrazy

    whocrazy Registered Member

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    Did you try my trick with fdisk?
    another thing to try is this. It's a long shot, but if you go to www.terabyteunlimited.com
    there is a product called copy wipe. What you could do is, instead of formating, use copywipe and then try reinstalling your software.
     
  6. eskimo737

    eskimo737 Registered Member

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    Yes, I tried fdisk and I was able to delete the partition that secure zone created but the recovery manager with the F11 prompt in the mbr was still there and would "burp" everytime I started windows after that. I then tried to re-write the mbr to get rid of that command with the Acronis downloadable tool and that's when things really went south. Thanks for the help though. :)
     
  7. whocrazy

    whocrazy Registered Member

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    what if you were to try fdisk /mbr. let me know if that works.
     
  8. eskimo737

    eskimo737 Registered Member

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    I tried fdisk /mbr before I used the Acronis Utility to fix the mbr and that didn't work either. I got a message that said mbr was not changed but did not give detail.
     
  9. whocrazy

    whocrazy Registered Member

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    dont worry. we're not done yet.
    did you do a fdisk /mbr from dos or from a dos box under windows, try doing a fdisk /mbr under clean dos, if that doesn't work,
    there is a very good utility called mbrtool from diydatarecover.nl it's freeware, try using that. again, you'll have to boot to a clean dos system in order to run it.
    there is a also a program you can get called test disk 6.3 from www.cgsecurity.org
    it's also freeware, but it looks and feels like comercialware!
    good luck!
     
  10. whocrazy

    whocrazy Registered Member

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    I've just had another thought. Looking back at my previous posts, I mention a program called copy wipe. The only fare and square way of getting rid of the f11 prompt from your mbr appears to be to use a disk wiping utility such as copywipe which will wipe your whole hard drive from top to bottom including the mbr..
    Let me know if this helps. I dont see why it shouldn't
     
  11. eskimo737

    eskimo737 Registered Member

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    Thanks for all of the great tips Whocrazy :thumb: , but I already re-booted from my system disk and chose the re-format hdd option thinking that would fix the problem. I spent an entire day re-loading all my software and trying to salvage as many of my files as possible. I didn't run into any problems at all until I tried to re-load Acronis TI9 (even latest build 3567). The installing screen kept freezing up and wouldn't continue or respond, it must have seen some remnants of itself it didn't like. In hindsight I should have probably used copy wipe first before starting over but oh well. Fortunately, I was able to restart windows and get my system "unlocked." Everything is working fine now except my "half installed" Acronis TI9. I sent all the files to Acronis Tech Support that they asked for. Hopefully they can figure out what the problem is. Hmmm, may I should have purchased Norton Ghost instead? Thanks again Whocrazy!!!
     
  12. whocrazy

    whocrazy Registered Member

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    Hello there.
    if you dont want that acronis boot loader coming up again and again, then using a wiping utility is the only way to get rid of it. I have encountered this before with some other software, it used a special scheme where it put information in the mbr and track0 as well as other places on the drive that not even format c: and fdisk couldn't seem to get at, and the only way to get it out of my system was to put it through a long hard, painful 14 hour detox program of formating, fdisking and wiping, and lots and lots of pacients! Actually I discovered later, it was the wiping that did it, back then I used a program called bcwipe from jetico software, but I didn't like the interface as it was commandline driven, and it had a bug which crashed my pc a lot, so I did some more investigation and came across copy wipe from terabyte unlimited, it has a very easy to navigate menu interface, just use copywipe to wipe the drive, and then do a fdisk and recreate the partition, then reinstall all your software. No more f11 screen on bootup, I guarantee you, it will work.
    Good luck with it.
    Hopefully it won't take 3 weeks until you hear back from acronis, like what happened to a certain ATI enterprise server user recently!!
     
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