TI 9 (build 3677) Secure Zone disappeared!

I've never tried it but according to Bodgy's reply above you can and I see no logical reason to doubt him.

Regards

 

Hello,

i have exactly the same problem, but with TI10.
The SZ disappeared, means available but can not maintained or used anymore.
Is the reinstallation only the last possibility?
Porscherad

 

From the post on removing TI manually:

I am assuming this is an either/or situation. Either remove automagically (not an option) or manually.

In addition, I wonder about whether doing the manual removal mentioned will completely destroy my secure zone and make it so I will need to start over. It certainly sounds like it. Any input?

Thanks.

 

Hello bonsai63,

That's correct.

I'm not sure whether you are talking about manually removing TI or just manually removing the SZ. Either way, your installation seems to be badly messed up so I would proceed as follows:

1. If you had activated the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager then deactivate it by using the mbrautowrite tool as detailed in the Acronis Support sticky titled <PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU POST> Download mbrautowrite.exe via the link provided and run it to create the necessary utility on a blank floppy. Boot via this floppy and run the utility to restore the MBR to standard.

2. Copy your Scheduled Task scripts elsewhere for restoring later as advised by bodgy in Post #13.

3. Use Windows Disk Management to manually delete the SZ. This will also delete any images contained in the SZ.

4. Use the Acronis Support instructions advised in Post #22 to manually remove all traces of TI 9.0.

5. Reinstall TI and then recover the unallocated space left by manually deleting the SZ as per the instructions provided in Post #11 of this previous thread titled <Unallocated space.......what to do?>.

6. Restore your old scheduled task script to their correct location.

7. If required, create a new SZ via the Manage Acronis Secure Zone Wizard. Unless you can't live without it, I recommend that you DO NOT accept the default option to also activate the Startup Recovery Manager.

Hope the above manages to straighten every thing out.

Regards

 

Menorcaman,

Thank you very much for holding my hand through this process. I appreciate it more than you can know. I'll proceed as you have directed.

Thanks!

 

Update: I followed your directions last night, Menorcaman, and I now appear to have a functional TI with SZ. I'd be more descriptive, but that's the short of it. Plus, I have to get to work. Thanks!

 

Hi bonsai63,

Glad I was able to help. Here's hoping the "apparent" functionality turns out to be fact.

Regards

 

Well, it's happened again, just like before. On April 11th, my backup log started reporting failures and sure enough, TI 9 can no longer find the 'Secure Zone'. It's very secure. So secure, I'll never be able to use it.

So, this brings up the question of what to do now. I cannot continue to use the Secure Zone going forward. It's much too risky IMHO. The only option I see if I stay with TI is to upgrade to TI 10 (which I will gladly do if my PC will be reliably backed up and won't disappear). My objective here is to have a way to 'set it and forget it'. I want to set up rules for my backups and have them expired, deleted, rotated out, whatever you want to call it based on those rules. I will, of course, check in from time to time to ensure nothing untoward is occuring, but to have all of your backups just disappear off of the face of the planet is completely unacceptable and it has happened to me twice with TI 9. If it happens to me again and I do not move on from Acronis, I will be the fool, not them.

With that said, can anyone comment on whether these new features seem to fit what I'm talking about, whether anyone has had experience with these features, if they seem to be reliable alternatives to the Secure Zone, and your recommendation(s).


New! Create backup archive rules Ensure that you never run out of space by setting limits on the amount of space allocated for backups, the number of backups and the amount of time you keep backups. The application will automatically manage backups and provide space for new backups

New! Backup policies Schedule backup tasks that will backup all data, data changes against the previous backup or data changes against the initial backup (i.e. perform full, incremental or differential backup) in a desired order


I appreciate your input.

Thanks. I really mean that.


P.S. - If I DO upgrade, I'm assuming the recommendation would be to follow the directions in the previous post(s) by Menorcaman before doing the installation for TI 10. Yes?

 

Hello bonsai63,

There may be a pointer to the root of the problem in the elapsed time before the current "disappearance".

If the latest de-materialisation happened following an incremental which was one of a series it is possible that the zone is now full and TI is having a fit of the vapours !

So I recommend that you manually start a full backup. This would then kick start the automatic FIFO re-cycling.

Changing to V10 would indeed provide the facility you require without using the secure zone. I have stayed with the secure zone through V8,V9 and V10. for me the SZ does all that I need so I have not bothered with the new " Backup Locations" feature.

If my tentative solution above is in fact rubbish and you move on to V10 I would suggest you uninstall V9 using no more than the Windows add/remove programs method having first shut down the four running TI background tasks.
You would then be left with your task schedules intact though in my case the start daily box needed to be re-checked.
And who knows your secure zone might even pop back into this existence. Should this not happen then it would be best to to do a thorough clean up following the previous directions.

Xpilot

 

Thank you, Xpilot, I appreciate your input. I did try your suggestion of manually starting a full backup, but to no avail. You see, TI can't even find the SZ anymore. It's there, and all my backups with it, just TI doesn't know it and as last time there is no way for me to change that (or no one has found a way for me to change it). Windows sees the partition, TI doesn't. If I go into the 'Manage Acronis SZ' facility and click 'next', TI asks me what hard disk I want to create the SZ on. If I choose the correct disk from the list and click 'next' again, it shows the appropriate partitions on the disk, but the one with the SZ cannot be selected, therefore I can't get TI to 'see' the partition again. Maybe if I did a complete reformat of the disk I could get it to see it, but that's not an acceptable option for me. I want an option where I don't have to reformat the disk and lose all my previous backups every few months.

Alrighty, if I don't get more responses soon I will probably go the route of TI10. I admit some trepidation at that, because this problem should not even be happening and I've seen no one else on these boards with a similar problem. I would assume that means I have a unique quirk in my system and that could mean I will have a problem even with the new version, but I have no other choices as I see it.

Thanks again, and if anyone else has input I would appreciate it.

 

Prior to your losing the SZ, did you perform any type of system maintenance?
Such things as any type cleanup; or defrag; or anti-virus sweep; Dual booting?

I am not looking for anything specific but trying to find what occurred on your system prior to the disappearance. What type utilities are running all the time or prior to the disappearance?

 

GroverH,

Thank you very much for your reply.

I would say that what you suggest might be possible except that I have my backups scheduled for 3 am and 4:30 am. The first one fired off and was successful. The second, not so much. That is when I started having problems, sometime between the first backup completing successfully in the 3 am timeframe and the second backup kicking in at 4:30 am.

I don't do dual booting or anything that exotic and I don't use raid arrays (anymore).

I'm thinking that sometime in the next few days I will probably upgrade to TI10 and see if the backup locations will work better for me. I'll report back in a year.

 

Well, it hasn't been a year, but I thought I would give an update. I did upgrade to TI10 and created a backup location. So far TI has rotated out one full set of backups without any problem, which is more than what I got using the SZ. I've also successfully done a full restore on several occasions, so I'm a happy camper. It does seem like it takes longer to do the restore than I remember before for some reason, but it does work so I can't complain.

Anyway, so far, so good. Thanks for all of your assistance.