backup acronis secure zone

hi there again.

i installed a new sata drive onto a pc and followed with installation of windows and a few basic apps.
i then took a backup image of C drive and have it stored in a secure zone on the hdd.
what i want to know is if i want to add another storage hdd to my pc, can i make a copy of that secure zone onto the new hard drive along with backups of all my other files.

cheers

 

Hello glenpinn,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that there is no need to create more than one copies of Acronis Secure Zone, because the main purpose of Acronis Secure Zone is to provide you with a special hidden partition in case if you do not have a dedicated backup storage. If you have another storage device you can save image archives there and if the original hard drive fails you will be able to restore the system from these images.

Please also note that you can not manage (move or copy) image archives stored in Acronis Secure Zone.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

hi and thanks.
so what your saying is that the acronis secure zone is only there to use to restore my existing drive back to the time that the backup image was taken, in this case i took it just after windows installation, with basics apps installed.

i was told that the secure zone should always be kept on a different drive if possible.

can i add a new hdd to my current pc, and use the image in my acronis zone on my main drive to create an image on the new drive so i can remove the original drive and boot from the new drive.

cheers

 

Hello glenpinn,

Please note that Acronis Secure Zone was designed for those who has only one hard drive. The “farther” you store the archive from the original partition, the safer it will be in case of data damage. For example, saving the archive to another hard disk will protect your data if your primary disk is damaged. Data saved to a network disk or removable media will survive even if all your local hard disks are down. If you have another hard drive just for backup purposes you can simply unplug it after the backup creation and keep in a safety place.

Also Acronis Secure Zone can be located on any local disk. And you can store any images created with Acronis True Image 9.0 there.

Yes, you can restore the image of your old hard drive to the hew one and after that use the new hard drive instead of the old one. Please also note that if you what to replace one hard drive with another one we may recommend you to use "Disk Clone" tool of Acronis True Image 9.0. Additional information about this tool can be found in the Chapter 7. "Transferring the system to a new disk" in Acronis True Image User Guide.

Please remember that in order to clone your Windows system to a different hardware, you should first prepare Windows using Microsoft System Preparation Tool (Sysprep).

You may also find the clone procedure here.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

hi again.
do i have to use this SYSPREP to clone my existing drive to a new drive using the acronis CLONE DISC option, or is this SYSPREP used only when restoring an existing drive image thats stored in the acronis secure zone on my existing drive.

this is very confusing because there is no reference to this SYSPREP thing in the acronis help file table of contents, the file makes it sound so easy to do this restore or cloning, and some seem to say its better to do an image restore from the boot cd, not from within windows as the help file suggests it should be done winthin windows if possible.

obviously if i simply run the DISC CLONE option i have to do it from within windows, or should i also use the acronis boot cd for cloning my current main drive over to a new drive.

everything i have read in the help files suggests i run everything from windows, so as of now im pretty well confused, and maybe just reformat and run a fresh install of windows is a better option.

cheers.....GLEN

 

Hello glenpinn,

If I understand correctly, you are planning to add a second disk for backups at a later time and when it comes to it, you would like to transfer the Day One image on this second disk and keep it there.

Since now you only have the OS and a few applications installed and you won't be able to copy the image you already made from Secure Zone, you should create another system disk image, storing it temporarily on the C partition itself (yes, that works, and from Windows too). Create the image in 1492 MB splits and copy these image files to a DVD. Check the image with the Check Archive tool before copying and again when on DVD. Now you may delete the image files from C. When you install the second drive, you can copy the Day One image from the DVD, but keep the DVD too.

With the second disk operational, you can delete the Secure Zone and return the space taken to the normal partition.

Whenever you create an image of the system disk, see that the box in front of Disk1 is ticked too, not just the partition(s). That's what Acronis calls an "image of the entire disk".

Please do read the User's Guide and the FAQs - following Help is absolutely not enough.

The SysPrep procedure must only be performed when you are going to restore the image to another computer with different hardware (e.g. machine upgrade). As long as you stay with the same computer, you don't need SysPrep - even when you are going to replace the system drive.

 

ok thank you, especially about sysprep.

what i have is a 250gb maxtor sata drive, freshly installed to my pc with windows loaded, and a few basic apps installed. i then took an image of my C drive only, with OS and installed apps. its now in a 5gb secure zone on that maxtor drive.
my intention is to remove this maxtor sata drive, and eventually put it into another pc and that will get a fresh OS install.

my pc will have 2 new 250gb seagate sata drives added, and what i wanted to do was firstly install a seagate drive as a second drive in my pc, and do a DISC CLONE of my current maxtor drive onto the seagate drive, then remove the maxtor, boot up with the new seagate with the cloned drive installed, then add another seagate drive as the storage drive.

when i clone my complete maxtor hdd to the seagate drive, it will have a copy of everything from the maxtor drive, OS, files and a copy of the secure zone as well.

what i basically wanted to know is once ive done the disc clone to the seagate, and added the 2nd seagate storage drive, can i transfer that original secure zone that will be on the new seagate drive, onto the second seagate storage drive, as i want the secure zone on a different drive to the OS.

its all very confusing but i know what i want to do, its trying to explain it thats probably the problem.
it appears to me that once the secure disc image has been created and the secure zone has been made and put in place, it cant be moved or copied to another hard disc before i remove the original drive from my pc. seems the only way is to copy it bit by bit onto dvd discs.

lastly, there seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether one should do disc CLONING or drive IMAGING from within windows or doing it using the acronis boot cd method. can someone please tell me which way really is best, as i want to run this DISC CLONE soon and i assumed i can simply run it from windows using the acronis application and hitting the CLONE DISC option.

anyway, thanks for your help......GLEN

 

Hi again glenpinn,

If you are going to install both Seagate drives now, you won't need Secure Zone. Seagate2 will be the storage place for the images of Seagate1, your future system disk.

I would advise you first add Seagate1 to the Maxtor and restore the image stored in Maxtor's SZ to Seagate1. Turn off, remove Maxtor, connect Seagate1 to SATA channel 1 and reboot. You should not reboot with two bootable drives connected. If Seagate1 boots fine, add Seagate2 and format it. Now you can delete the SZ on Seagate1 (reassigning it's space to a regular partition) and create a new image of Seagate1, storing it on Seagate2. From now on, all the images go to Seagate2 plain, no SZ anywhere.

In general, cloning is a one-time operation you use when you replace a drive with a new (bigger) one. Imaging is used for regular backups, it's a more flexible way to recover from OS crashes, infections or incomplete uninstallations, but can be used for drive upgrade as well.

You could use cloning in the first step, but as you already have an image available, restoring it to the new drive would be a safer approach. We have seen cloning fail on some setups.

 

hi again.
i appreciate your help as the acronis help files and user guides can be very daunting and i find them very confusing.

i was going to add the seagate to my pc as 2nd drive, and clone the whole maxtor drive over (C drive with OS and D drive with my files) then turn off pc, disconnect maxtor and change seagate to sata 1 connector and boot up.
if the seagate boots up and the pc runs fine, then i would remove maxtor permanantly, install other seagate as storage, boot up, format other seagate in explorer as a single partition and backup my files from the main drive onto that.

now your suggestion to add the seagate as i mentioned is ok, but you say to use the day one C drive image in the secure zone on my maxtor to restore onto my new seagate drive, which is probably more what i want to do, but what about my D drive files on the maxtor, how can i get them onto the new seagate after i run the secure zone image backup, i will have to reboot the pc after running the drive image and you say i should not boot up the pc again with 2 drives that have the OS on them.
i have all my stuff stored on cd and dvd data discs but its easier to copy them over from the original hdd.

so heres the sequence of events one more time.

1. install seagate 1 to 2nd sata connector on mobo.
2. boot up the pc
3. initiate the drive restore from my maxtor secure zone to my seagate 1
4. after restore, turn off pc, remove maxtor, swap seagate 1 to main sata connector and reboot
5. if it boots and everything runs ok, turn off, add other seagate 2 to 2nd sata connector on mobo, then reboot
6. format seagate 2 in windows explorer
7. then create a new C drive backup image into a secure zone on the seagate 2 storage drive (which will be identical to the current image drive i have)
8. start adding software as normal.

just want to know how to get my files from the maxtor D drive onto the new seagate 1 drive after doing the C drive image from my maxtor secure zone.
i thought you can run 2 drives with OS on them, only it will boot up to the OS on the drive thats connected to the main sata connector on the mobo.

anyway, its not an issue, i have cd/dvd backups, but its a pain to do it like that.

btw, is it safe to run my secure zone image to the seagate from windows, or better to do it using the acronis boot cd, some say boot method is better, some say from windows is better.

cheers again....GLEN

edit: should i keep the maxtor as it is until i see if the new saegate boots up ok. i thought there might be a way of formatting the Cdrive partition on the maxtor, leaving the files on D drive as they are, then use the maxtor as a storage drive to my seagate 1 drive so i can copy over all my files, then remove it and use it in my other pc.

 

Unless you are planning to do automated backups and are relying on the automatic deletion rules in the Secure Zone there is no need to create a Secure Zone on a second hard drive for backups. Its main purpose is to allow people with only one HD to do an image and restore it since an image can't be restored to the partition it resides on.

The other disadvantage of backups in the SZ is that you can't easily see them and you cannot do file management like move, copy, delete with them. If you have an image in the SZ you wish to put elsewhere such as on DVD you can't do it.

 

Hi again glenpin,

I assumed the image you had created was an entire disk image. Since it isn't, it also doesn't contain the MBR. So, short of rebuilding the MBR on the Seagate separately, the option to restore the image you have, is out: the Seagate wouldn't boot.

You have two options now. One is to clone the Maxtor to Seagate 1. The other is to add Seagate 2 to the Maxtor, format it and create a new image of the entire Maxtor (Disk1 box must be checked - not just the individual partitions), storing it on Seagate 2. Then you replace Maxtor with Seagate 1, boot from Rescue CD and restore the image stored on Seagate 2 to Seagate 1. This is the way I would choose.

I have never had problems (or seen negative reports from others) creating an image of the system disk from Windows, but some users feel safer running that operation from the rescue environment. Of course, restoring the system drive can only be accomplished from rescue environment.

And yes, keep the Maxtor as it is until you verify all the results, to be able to retrace your steps if something goes wrong.

 

hi again.
if the original rescue image in my secure zone was of my whole C drive with the OS + the installed apps i had installed at that time, wouldnt that image include the MBR and because it has the OS on the image, i assumed it will boot as a normal drive.

what i gather your saying now is that when i first installed the maxtor hdd, and install the OS and partition it, i needed to take the recovery image of the whole drive with both partitions, not just C drive, even tho there are no files yet on the D drive partition.

i see 2 options available now.

option 1. (start from scratch which is more logical at this point)

install seagate 2 sata drive as 2nd drive with maxtor, format it and dump my maxtor D drive files (all 150gb of them) onto it, then remove the maxtor, and disconnect seagate 2.
hook up seagate 1 as main drive and run a fresh install of windows, using partitions of C and D drives as i usually do.
after its up and running and i have the mobo and graphics drivers installed i then hook up seagate 2 as its slave, take a drive image with acronis of the whole seagate 1 drive (without any files on D drive) and store the secure zone on the storage drive, not on the main drive. this image will only be about 3gb or so in size, so the secure zone will only be about 3.5 or 4gb in size.

option 2.

install seagate 1 with the maxtor, and use the clone disc option using my whole maxtor drive with everything i currently have installed, then take out the maxtor, connect seagate 1 as the main drive, add the seagate 2 drive as the storage drive, boot up and format seagate 2, move all my files over from seagate 1 D drive so its empty, and then take an image of the whole seagate 1 drive without my files, and store the image secure zone on seagate 2. i can then copy all my files back to seagate 1 D drive.

this wasnt really what i wanted to do as i really only wanted an image of the drive with only the fresh OS and a few of my apps installed, as of now i have all my software installed on my maxtor and have all my files (all 150gb of them) as well on D drive.

i think the thing to be carefull of here is that you have to image a complete drive (without personal files) to be able to run the restore or dump the image onto another drive, otherwise if you image with files as well, the secure zone would be huge, in my case 170gb if i image my current maxtor drive completely.

if i run with option 1 above, do a fresh install, and take a backup image of my whole drive (C and D partitions) without all my files on D drive, what happens when i want to run a restore of that same drive later using that restore image without all my files, will i not then lose all the files i have on D drive because in effect its reverting the whole drive back to the state it was in when i took the original day one image. got to make sure my backups are done on the storage drive b4 doing this i guess.

anyway, whatever i do, im first going to add my seagate 2 drive to the maxtor, format it, copy all my files to the seagate 2, then thats already done so no matter what way i go, i already have my files stored on another drive.

thanks again for your help. im thinking that doing a fresh OS install is the way to go right now. i got to run a fresh install on the other pc anyway once my pc is setup and ive put the maxtor drive into the other pc.

 

I agree and like your option 1.

As for Secure Zone, read seekforever's post again and find a reason for using SZ (and loosing direct access to image files) before adopting it.

After the first entire disk image with D empty (to have the MBR imaged), you will probably be creating separate images of partitions C (and D). You will want to have access to the image files to manage them, not automation.

Even if you opt for SZ, don't store your Day One image there. It will be the first one to get automatically deleted (without previous warning) when TI can't find enough space in SZ for the next image. See the rules TI follows to make the space needed in Secure Zone in the User's Guide.


Addendum: Since you will use the Day One image as a template for any later partition images, you should keep at least one more copy of it elsewere. If you don't store it to SZ, you can copy it to just one DVD.

Didn't I tell you ... ?

 

yeah but i dont want to take other drive images after the day 1 image, thats the whole point of me doing this. i see no point in taking images of my drive as i go along, and ending up with an image of my drive that has everything installed.
if i decide later i dont want all these things installed, to get rid of all unneccessary files and registry entries, i want to be able to do a system restore back to the day 1 image, where i have only the basics installed with the OS.

how can i take a restore image of my current drive with all my files on it as well, where do i store an image thats 170gb in size, because thats what my current maxtor drive has on it, 155gb of files and 15gb of OS and installed apps and some games. where would i put an image that size.

im thinking that all in all its probably better to just do a fresh install of the OS whenever i want to revert back to a fresh system, this acronis thing is way to complicated, installing an OS is easy and gives you a fresh start, adding the software isnt an issue because you simply add it as you need to use it, so its an easy option i think.

all i need to do is make sure i have my second drive running with all my backups and ill be fine, just run a fresh install each time.

for this time only, to get my backup files onto the second seagate without having to dump them from cd/dvd discs is to do what i said in option 1 above, connect the seagate 2 drive to the pc, boot up the maxtor, format seagate as a single partition in windows, copy all my files over, dump the maxtor, install seagate 1, run a fresh install of OS and away i go.

thanks for all your help on this, once ive got my 2 seagates running fresh, ill reconcider the acronis thing when the time comes.

cheers.....GLEN

 

My approach is completely different, but so are my computing needs.

I see your point, though.

Take care.

 

Interesting perspective. Most of the other posts have indicated that they just want to go back to a recent image rather than a "Day 1" image since there is too much stuff to add to bring it up to date.

I think after you use TI a bit, you will see that it for the most part makes sense apart from some annoying user-interface quirks.

My method is to do a fresh install of the OS when the system is new (not try to port over the OS from the old computer with Sysprep) and install my base applications that I consider essential. I then build up my apps as I need them; I don't install everything I had before because a lot of it is no longer of interest. If I am trying new software or doing something that I consider hazardous or I know I won't want to keep, I make an image, do the work and then restore the old image. This way I know there are no traces of the trials in my system.

I do make an image of my Day 1 so if I have to install windows again for any reason it will take less time. I don't think I've ever used it though.

My method works for me with XP. When I was using W98 I used to redo the OS and apps at least once a year because it used to bog down.

It is nice to have older images around in case you run into something screwy with your system. You can revert to an older image and see if the problem is something recent with your software or not.

To each, his own.

 

Hi seekforever,

We seem to have a lot in common.

When I received this splendid desktop six months ago, I made a Day One image too. It contained XP SP2 and the basic security software. I still keep three copies of it, on different media.

Then I discovered that the OS preinstallation hadn't been a clean one, but rather a clone of a badly cleaned source disk. So, I had to delete leftovers of never installed programs from registry.

After running a few months, the computer started to regularly boot much faster. I still don't know why that happened, must have been the result of some optimizing XP does on its own. I added some changes of my own, like disabling the unused network port and connecting the USB mouse to PS/2 (that eliminated a warning from the event viewer) and here I have a computer that after six months boots much faster than new and runs at the same pace or better.

As it looks now, my base image won't be the Day One I once so treasured, but a much later one. Even if I had to uninstall some of the programs now present, I would be better off than restarting from Day One.

 

Hi bVolk,

Perhaps great minds do think alike!

 

hi there.

yes i think my way (and yours) is what i concider the best option.
im not doing this so much to get myself a recent restore incase of a problem with booting up or whatever, i was going to do this to save myself a bit of time and effort rather than do a fresh OS install each time i want a fresh pc.

i dont understand why anyone would take a mirror image of their drive today, to use in a restore tomorrow, thats ok if you have a simple problem like driver issue or similar, but u can use your system restore to roll back a few days or weeks.

i do video and photo editing and i run a lot of different apps for my work, and im always trying out new apps on trial, and it ends up leaving a whole bunch of stuff in the registry when i uninstall these apps, and eventually this kind of work ends up bogging down your pc, so a fresh install i think is neded every 6 mths and thats all i wanted to use acronis for, install windows and the unified drivers to get sound and internet going and thats it, then take a whole drive image with no files stored on D partition, then store that day 1 image to use in 6 mths for a total system restore back to day 1.

anyway, im not going to bother with acronis, only to take an image of day 1 install again for emergency purposes. im going to add a seagate as a storage drive to my maxtor and format it and copy over all my files on my maxtor D drive over so i already got a storage drive complete to add again later. im going to remove the maxtor, add the other seagate as the main drive, do a fresh install of OS, add the unified drivers for sound and internet etc, then hook up the other seagate storage drive and take an image of the new seagate drive without the files copied over, and store that image in a secure zone on the 2nd seagate drive, for an emergency, just incase i lose my windows xp pro cd for example. if it does happen, least ill still have a secure zone day 1 image i can use if need be. i can then add antivirus, graphics drivers and install other important apps required immediately then add the others as needed.

me personally from what ive read in all the acronis threads, too many issues and ifs and maybies with acronis, much easier to do a fresh install and i can have the fresh install done, everything added (antivirus etc) and setup to the way i like it in about 2 hours, then add the apps as you need them.

im still seing too many conflicting arguements that acronis restore should be done from windows or should be done using the boot disc method, acronis says its better to try it from within windows, others say too many issues with that method, do it from boot disc, and im totally confused by it all.

cheers guys and thanks for your input, much appreciated.....GLEN