Cannot create Acronis secure zone

Instead of removing the secure zone, I only set it to be not activated. Doing that did resolved the booting problem.

** I ran check disk on all the partition's and they are all ok.

Ran the Vista repair disk just out of curiosity and that stated that it did not find any problems with the boot files.

** It wasn't me that put the boot files on D: Likely that was HP, as that is where it's recover files had been before I deleted them. I have not been able to move the boot files from D: to C:, as I get I need permission error.

Vista Home basic does not have an administrator logon. So I researched that with google and found and performed a registry hack from a respectable site, so that I can logon as the administrator. My thinking was that I might avoid the permission problem that way. But still I cannot move those boot files from D: to C

Another weird thing to note is that now when I try to create a one click backup from the desktop while logged in in as my use name, I now get a permission denied error. But if I logon as the administrator, that works fine. - So, I do now have a new backup of how things are currently.(To go along with my previous backup from a couple of days ago)

Another thing that should be noted is that now when I boot to the acronis disk and from its first screen if I click the windows button instead of starting acronis, I get that same boot failer that I was getting before. -- To be clear, all is fine now with booting with the acronis secure zone et to Not Activated.

Hope you got a good rest Mark, I'm off to sleep now myself. I'm going to try to be back at about 2pm your time. I also may take a quick look before then.

 

Paul:

Thanks for checking in. HP set up his laptop with the Vista boot files in their OEM recovery partition. After tboltfrank got everything else working I was going to help him move the boot files into the Vista partition. We haven't gotten that far yet...

I don't understand the current behavior of the ASRM. With it activated, Windows produces a boot error. With it de-activated, the boot error goes away. Booting from the Acronis rescue CD and choosing "Windows" also produces the boot error. ?? Do you suppose that the Acronis code depends on having Vista as the active partition? I've never tried activating the ASRM on my Vista machine with an independent boot partition, have you?

tboltfrank:
Could you copy down the exact text of the error message?

 

You can probably also get around this by right-clicking on the TrueImage program icon and choosing "Run as administrator".
When you installed TI, did you install it for All Users?
Is your user a member of the administrator group?
Does TI produce a UAC prompt when started? (It should, and then it should run with admin privileges).

 

When I go into user accounts, it shows my user name icon has administrator written below my user name.

I selected install for all users when I installed Acronis, but remember I did the administrator registry hack that gives me the administrator log on option later on.

Edit:
TI does produce a UAC prompt when started while right clicking and selecting run as administrator, but when I try it , a dialog box pops up for entering the user password, and I get an incorrect password error msgbox. I even tried entering the Admin password, but that produced the same incorrect password error.

I'll post that other error text that you asked for soon. Hopefully I'll be able to pause the screen to give me enough time to write what it says down.

 

Here is most of the text, hope you do not need every word, but if it will help I am willing to do that a little later today. Like maybe a few hours from now. The exact sequence of events when booting with the acromis disk inserted is:

(Edit: I had the sequence here a little off.) I actually had to select Windows a second time from the Acronis screen, because after the first time, the pc restarts as if I had pressed alt-cntrl-delete. After the restart, Acronis loads again, I select windows again, then I get the error screen with the text described in the image below.

 

Hello tboltfrank,

The bad news is that Acronis have just moved the goal posts. In the latest build the Secure Zone is no longer secure and the ASRM is no longer located there but is activated within your operating system.

I don't know if this will make you happy or sad. It makes me mad.

Xpilot

 

What happens when you are using your regular user account and you start the Registy Editor? Do you see this UAC prompt that allows you to just press the "Continue" button?



Unless your registry hack has altered Vista's default behavior, when a user who is a member of the admin group starts a program that needs privilege elevation, you should be prompted with the above dialog. The dialog should not be asking for a password. That is only supposed to happen when a non-admin user starts a program, like Regedit, that needs privilege elevation.

The dialog shown in your post is from TI; not from Windows.

 

Yes I did already know that the error I posted is from TI. . . When selecting one click protection, TI prompts me for the user password, of which there is no password set. So when I leave it blank and continue that's when I get that error in the TI error image that I posted., I'm going to go into user groups now and add a password to to my user name. I fully expect that will solve the password issue which I possibly did not describe properly.

Be back in a couple of minutes with that result.

 

That's good. That's the text that is displayed when Windows thinks it has not been shut down properly. Vista keeps track of its operating state (running, hibernated, shut down) and when you reboot, if something does not seem right you see the screen shown in your post.

It is unusual for the ASRM to cause this behavior. Perhaps it will stop behaving this way when we move Vista's boot files into the C: partition. Let's defer that. For now, leave the ASRM de-activated so that you avoid this error.

When you get back to the project, finish the remaining steps 7 - 9 from post #37. When you're up for it we can get rid of your boot partition by moving the boot files to C: for a more conventional setup.

 

Edit: Below is the sequence leading up to the TI user log on error, that I was getting when there was no password set. except I left out the UAC message, because I was locked out of doing print screen while that message was displayed... Adding a password to my user name in user account's , did solve that though, so no problem with that now.

I'm up for doing that move now, if you are still here.

 

Doing the move is a little geeky. Moving the files, editing the BCD, and changing the Active flag in the partition table must all be done from a command prompt. You need to be rested and ready to do things meticulously, step-by-step. Before doing this have the rest of the steps finished and then make an image of your disk.

It will take me a while to prepare detailed instructions. I'll probably refer you to parts of MudCrab's web site where he something similar posted. I'll give it a stab in a couple of hours after I finish designing an exam for the course that I'm teaching. Work beckons...

 

Great, I'll take a couple of hour nap, to become better rested... then I will keep an eye out for you as I work on my (job related) email answering.

 

When running into partitioning problems like this, I usually like to remove everything that might be causing a problem. The problems with the partition's size changing bothers me because that usually means something is not correct with how the partitions are setup/created.

That is what I think. The same goes for booting from the TI CD and selecting Windows. I don't know about the MBR code used by Acronis now, but the earlier versions wouldn't always boot correctly into any Windows partition that wasn't the first partition. Just stupid things like that.

As far as I can remember, I haven't.

 

Hello MudCrab

Sounds to me like I probably should restore the backup from before I created the I: partition. That's the partition that you feel something is not correct with how the partitions are setup/created. Restoring as you know will also get rid of my registry hack, as well as the unactivated secure zone.

 

That bothers me too. The last slot in the partition table on the disk is an extended partition container that was created by Vista Disk Management. Then I had him create a logical partition inside the container. Both would have been set up with 2048-sector offset rules. Next I had him create an ASZ and take space from the logical partition. Probably the Acronis partitioner set the ASZ up with 63-sector offset rules.

Does this seem like a good plan?
1. Move boot files to C:
2. Delete the remaining partitions
3. Use Vista Disk Management to create a primary partition for images
4. Leave the last two slots in the PTable empty and leave some unallocated space for the ASZ
5. Let TI create a primary partition for the ASZ

That might explain it. We'll find out.

 

I'd hold off on doing that. There are all kinds of pitfalls that might happen when you restore a disk with a multiboot setup on it, or in your case, a separate boot partition. I'd rather help you avoid any of those pitfalls.

 

I wonder if it really is the last slot. TI may have moved it. Remember that Disk Management didn't show the partitions correctly which means that there is a "split" somewhere in the Extended Container (from Posts #43 & #45).

The only problem I see is that the partition TI creates will not be aligned with the others. That has caused problems before, though I think that setup had many more partitions and quite a few "splits" in it. What do you think? I would probably create all the partitions with DD, but that's not an option here.

---

I wonder if the just released build of TI 2009 (9,78 keeps the Vista offset/alignment on a restore. However, I wouldn't recommend installing it just yet...

 

Good catch. I was under the impression that a TI restore was never done on this disk and that Vista Disk Management would create partitions and fill slots in numerical order. Maybe not. Or, maybe HP set the machine up originally with their recovery partition in slot #4. That would also explain it.

I don't think we have any choice in the matter. Whether we use VDM to create the ASZ partition or not, the TI code that sets up the ASRM will write a boot sector to the partition and I suspect, based on the behavior observed in post #45, that the code re-writes the partition table entry. So it will end up with 63-sector offset in any event. If the ASZ is in its own partition table slot as a primary I think it should work.

I wish that I was sitting in front of the machine with a copy of DD - it would probably take 5 minutes to fix it all up.

 

I just did a quick test on this and it still reverts to the 63 sector offset.

 

Thank you. I also read that build 9788 implements the Secure Zone and ASRM differently. They no longer go on a separate partition if I'm understanding this correctly ??

 

That's correct. The ASRM can be activated and used without needing the SZ.

 

Do you know how that's implemented? Is the MBR modified or is the partition boot record modified? Or, is there an entry in the BCD to boot the ASRM? If the boot files for the ASRM are in the Windows partition, what happens if the partition gets deleted?

 

From just a quick examination, it appears that only the MBR is changed. Acronis displays the usual "F11..." message.

If you delete the partition, you get the following error message:

Code:

MBR Error 1
Press any key to boot from floppy...

 

When you get back, I'm ready to help you move the boot files. Could you do the following so that I know what syntax to use in the instructions?

1. Boot into Vista. Start an elevated command prompt (right-click on Command Prompt and choose "Run as administrator". Enter the following command:

Code:

bcdedit

Your output will resemble the screen below. Save yourself a picture of the output for later comparison. Make a note of the values listed at the two red arrows.



2. Next, enter the following command:

Code:

bcdedit /enum all

Highlight all the text in the window (it will be long) and copy it to a new text document. Save the text file to your desktop and attach it to your next post.

3. Finally, reboot your PC from the Vista repair CD. Instead of doing an automatic repair, choose "Command Prompt":



At the command prompt type the following:

Code:

bcdedit

Compare the values highlighted by the red arrows on step 1 with the values shown now, while booted from the CD. In particular, does the value under the entry "Windows Boot Loader" for "device" show as C: or as D:?

The boot CD will probably list the boot partition as C: and the Vista partition as D:. Is that correct? Try it by typing

Code:

c:
dir /a

[COLOR="Blue"]followed by:[/COLOR]

d: /a
dir

You should be able to tell which drive letter goes with which partition by looking at the list of files. When booted to the Vista repair CD, which drive letter goes with the Vista partition? Which goes with the boot partition?

 

By "delete the partition" do you mean the Vista partition?

It sounds like their MBR must hook into files in the Vista partition instead of hooking into files in the ASZ like before. That's not a bad implementation, provided that the install wizard can figure out which Windows partition to hook into. What if you had half a dozen Windows installs on the disk?