How do I retrieve HDD space used by Secure Zone?

Running True Image Home 9 on XP Pro Laptop.

After deleting the Secure Zone in the wizard, the 27 GB used by Secure Zone was not reallocated to the Primary partition on the HDD but now sits there as a 27 GB unallocated space which is useless to me on an already small laptop HDD.

Is there any way I can get this 27 MB unallocated space back again in the primary partition without reinstalling XP? The Disk manager in XP does not reallocate HDD space.

Urgent help would be appreciated.

 

When you deleted your SZ did you see an option as to where to allocate the space? It should be there in the wizard. I believe if you set your SZ back up, same size, then carefully go back through the delete process, you should be able to reallocate the space.

 

Thanks for replying. I don't think that will solve the problem. When I run the wizard again, it wants to allocate space for the secure zone from the now reduced C drive size ie it does not see the old secure zone space which now is unallocated space as explained in my previous post. My C drive is just getting smaller and smaller and I don't want to take the chance to create another secure zone.

 

Partition Magic will do the job...... but of course it costs

http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=sp&pvid=pm80

 

Well, you're right, of course your right. Sorry about that. Thanks for being careful with my suggestion.

Bearing in mind I've already given you one bone-headed suggestion:

What are you using for a backup location instead of the SZ? Are you familiar with and comfortable with the entire process of creating an image of your C partition, validating, and then restoring from the image? Have you done it on your computer with no problems enough times to trust the process? If so, I might have an answer. If not, I'd suggest a disk management program, such as Acronis Disk Director. Or Partition Magic, as the previous mentioned.

 

Hi Montana

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=146342&highlight=unallocated

This seemed to solve a similar problem and I'm sure if you search for ''unallocated'' in the Acronis forum there are threads with the same issue.

 

Thanks Tabvla for the suggestion. Unfortunately I don't want to spend money on a program that I will probable only use once.

yes, i also did a TI backup to an external USB drive and will use the restore when everything else fails. Doing a restore to a full 80 GIG partion will mean that I will have to delete and create a new partion first during the XP installation proccess. I have never done a TI restore before and just hope that it restores without any problem from the external drive.

I also contacted Acronis by PM and would like to hear what they suggest before I do something drastic.

 

Restoring an untested archive is extremely risky - if it fails you will lose your system partition. I would rather lose the unallocated space than risk a failed system partition restore.

The link provided by Old Monk is your best hope. You could try sending Xpilot (the Forum Guru on the Secure Zone ) a private message pleading for help - if he cant resolve the issue neither will Acronis Support.

If all else fails and you must have the unallocated space back then your only course of action is Partition Magic Or Disk Director.

 

I completely agree with Tabvla. The very first thing a restore does is delete your partition in preparation to writing over it. Don't take chances with an untested setup.

 

Thanks to you all for the positive inputs and helping hands. I did a verification on the archive and no errors were reported by TI. Does that cancel out your concern about an untested archive and setup? I also took notice of Acronis' motto: "Compute with confidence". Should I still be worried doing a restore? If a restore does not work, I made a big mistake buying True Image.

The unallocated space is just to large - 27 GB - to lose as suggested by Tabvla. Keep in mind that it's a notebook with only a 80 GB HDD.

Anyway, I read a posting by Menorcaman in another thread explaining how to retrieve unallocated space and will try it first thing tomorrow.

Thanks again.

 

Absolutely not!! Verification and Restore use 2 different algorithms to process the archive. An image that verifies means essentially that the checksum verifies. When used in relationship to an archive that contains data files this is almost as good (not quite but almost) as an actual restore. When used in relationship to a sysem partition archive it is almost meaningless.

A lot can go wrong with a system partition restore. The only way to confidently and safely test that a system partition will restore as a bootable partition is to restore it to another disk. Now with a Laptop that may not be practical. So, the golden rule with a single disk system (e.g. Laptop) is that you don't restore the system partition unless it has gone pear-shaped and is irrecoverable in any case so you may as well try the restore. If the restore fails you are no worse off than you would have been; if it works - which it will most of the time - then you are back in business.

As an extra word of caution. Laptops frequently employ a "hidden" partition. Only your Laptop manufacturer (not the idiot vendor who sold you the thing) really understands exactly what role the "hidden" partition plays in the total scheme of things. Check with the manufacturer what the status is with regards to your model.

 

Hi Tabvla

I will try out the restore proccess on an external USB drive and see what gives. As a safeguard, I will also do a system backup with Ghost, which I trust 100% having successfully restored many archives with Ghost in the past. (Maybe I must go back to Ghost ). The only reason I migrated to TI was the lack of the secure zone facility in Ghost. Since then I have invested in an external USB HDD for backups and do not need the secure zone.

The good news is that I followed the explanation by Menorcaman in another thread and have successfully retrieved the unallocated space. My thanks to Menorcaman!

Thanks again for your assistance. It's much appreciated.

 

Montana1

Good for you. I followed your lead and found Menorcaman's post. It's all so simple once you know. A few extra words on the TI wizard would be oh so helpful.

 

Hi Montana1, glad to see that you have it sorted.

Could you please post the link to Menorcaman's post.

TiA

 

Hi Tabvla

The link is here:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=78579&pp=25

See post #10 and #40 in this link. I used the workflow in #40 to reclaim the unallocated space.