Secure Zone necessary?

I have browsed other forums and one member posted that only the ATI image is saved to the external HDD and that member did not use Secure Zone as it was found to be problematic.
I have been doing a lot of reading in here and see a member said that Secure Zone is mandatory??
As mentioned in my prior threads I have had a techie do my Ghost with Norton Systemworks Premier 2005 and that with this proggy he had a partition on my notebook for the Ghost program which he said would be too difficult for me to master.
Now I am wondering about this Secure Zone as it sounds like I have to partition my notebook like Ghost and I would prefer to simply create my Image to my 300 gig Maxtor One Touch, is this not possible.
I am reading as much as possible before I create the backup and the rescue disk.

Comments would be greatly appreciated, thankyou.

 

Whoever said the secure zone is mandatory is wrong.
It is optional. It is advised not to use it on an external drive as there it is pointless and can give rise to complications.
It comes into its own on a secondary internal hard drive. I use one placed there for all my backup imaging. There are several users who shy away from using a secure zone in all circumstances.
So it is up to you if you want to use it or not.

Xpilot

 

No need to use Secure Zone - In fact I think it better to store images on external devices.

BUT I still think it is a good idea to have a hard drive partitioned so that you have at least (1) C:/ for the operating system and programs and (2) a data partition and (3) a partition to which you make images.

You can then make an image of C: and an image of your data partition and then transfer these images to your external drive or DVD.

when you restore C: you will not overwrite your data. when you restore from a partition you will find it quicker than restoring from USB or DVD.

Keeping other images off your PC also adds to security. but do keep one system image in a partition to allow quick restoration of C:

 

No, no, no

It is true that the SZ provides a degree of backup management by auto expiring older images as new ones are created. However this functionality is possibly in V10 without a secure zone, and possible in any other version using multiple schedules - with a lot more control and flexibility actually.

It is true that the SZ marks its partition type (in its partition record in the MBR) to a none standard value so the OS ignores it. This might seem to give a degree of obfuscation, but to be honest it would be a piece of cake to write a virus which looked for this partition type and then wreaked havoc.

It is true that the SZ is very handy if you only have one disk and you want to simplify the creation of a dedicated repoistory for your archives. However storing your backups on the same hard drive as your source data is in fact folly, and is found somewhere on page 1 of the recovery disaster handbook, in the section marked 'Whatever you do, don't do this' The truth is that there is in reality little justification for backing up to the same harddrive - even Laptops have USB ports . I guess this one is down to how important you think your data is.

So IMHO, far from the SZ being mandatory to use, I think the SZ should be mandatory to avoid - especially on the same drive as the source data.

F.

 

I think a distinction needs to be drawn here between storing your backups on the same hard drive and having a system backup available on a partition on the same hard drive.

Data images should always be kept off drive and preferably off site as well but system images can be so useful that having a copy of a known good image on a partition can save a great deal of time. Equally important here is the idea of having separate system and data images - having only one image make slife really more difficult than it need be.

Testing HIPS programs today I have restored a known good image 5 times from another partition. Restoring from USB would have taken me twice the time.

So I always keep the last 3 full system images on a dedicated partition
(duplicates held off disk)

 

I accept that we all have to use judgement in order to be pragmatic. However as a point of principle I don't agree that it is good practice (for me at least, each to their own) to store data on the same drive.

Note that on your point about speed and USB, you were talking about the speed of restoration - I was talking about backups. There is no harm in storing copies of you images whereever you please providing secure copies exist somewhere else.

F.

 

I don't think we are disagreeing in any way. I never store data images on the same drive and only keep copies of system images.

I have, however, noticed that whilst I restore images daily many others hardly ever restore an image. Restoring an image is looked upon as dangerous and to be avoided. I have read that some have made an image and hope never to have to use it ( ie it has never even been tested for real).

To me this is a great pity. I have wondered if one of the reasons ( apart from fear) that some are so hesitant to restore is time related - its just too much trouble ? my best time for making a system image is 45 seconds and even on this old machine it takes about 5 or 6 minutes to make a system image to another partition and about 8 to 9 minutes to restore. Making an image to USB or DVD would take longer and may be that's why some can't be bothered ?

 

I tend not to do frequent restores, only because I only need them when things go wrong- luckily that's not too often Any additional restoration time from a USB drive (and we are only talking a few minutes anyway) would not worry me personally. It would simply be an insignificant trade off of data security v time to restore.

As I say, I fully accept that we all work in different ways for good reasons and there is no silver bullet. It's all a matter of judgement.

F.