Copy Secure Zone To External Hard Disk?

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by bulldog356, Jul 15, 2006.

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  1. bulldog356

    bulldog356 Registered Member

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    [True Image 9.0 Home, build 3677, running on Windows XP SP 2]

    My Secure Zone is currently setup on a second internal hard disk. I know that Acronis does not recommend placing the Secure Zone on an external (USB/Firewire) hard disk. From what I've read, their only reason for feeling this way is that an external hard disk can't be used with the Startup Recovery Manager.

    I have no interest in the Startup Recovery Manager. But I am concerned that if my internal hard disk gets physically damaged, the images in the Secure Zone will be unrecoverable. So from time to time - lets say once a week - I would like to copy my Secure Zone to an external hard disk.

    Problem: The Secure Zone is only accessible from within True Image, and even then there's no way to copy the Zone or an individual image to somewhere else. I can't even copy the partition with Partition Magic 8.0.

    I could have setup the Secure Zone on my external hard disk to begin with, but imaging and restoring are accomplished much faster with an internal disk.

    Has anybody learned a way to copy the Secure Zone or one or more images in the Zone to an external hard disk?
     
  2. Xpilot

    Xpilot Registered Member

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    Images in a secure zone cannot be copied elsewhere.
    They can be mounted and individual files and folders can be copied from the virtual drive though not a complete OS. At any time one can do a recovery from an image in the secure zone. I do this to an exchangable hard disk as part of my backup stratergy. I assume that this would work to an external drive though I have never actually done it. As you would have to do this using the Linux drivers from the program or the recovery CD it might not be the quickest of processes.
    The simplest procedure would be to make separate fresh backup images to your external drive periodically for extra security. That is what I used to do till I rediscovered the value and effectiveness of exchangable hard drives.

    Xpilot
     
  3. bulldog356

    bulldog356 Registered Member

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    As I feared...

    For whatever reason, the developers at Acronis are dead set against making it easy for users to maintain a history of backups. You can do it in the Secure Zone, but you can't do anything with those images other than restore them. It's possible to maintain a history of backups outside the Secure Zone, but only if you teach yourself how to write scripts.

    Many thanks for your help.
     
  4. TheWeaz

    TheWeaz Registered Member

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    "It's possible to maintain a history of backups outside the Secure Zone, but only if you teach yourself how to write scripts."

    Actually, once you define your needs, it's usually possible with the right set of scheduled tasks.
     
  5. bulldog356

    bulldog356 Registered Member

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    True, and I've tried it that way too. I needed several scheduled tasks to accomplish it, when it should only require one. Then, when I want to change a task parameter, like when the task should run, I have to go back and change each scheduled task. What a pain.
     
  6. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    I haven't tried this, but...

    Can you make an image of the SecureZone with TI and store that image somewhere. Partition your external drive so that you have an empty partition at least as large as the SZ. Restore the image of the SZ to the partition on the external drive.

    I don't know whether this will work and whether it will cause problems with TI seeing two SecureZones, one on an internal drive and one on the external drive, but it's the only way I can think to do what you want.

    Try it at your own risk!
     
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