Newbie Question...Safe Zone

What exactly should be/will be stored in the Safe Zone?

Should it be created on my PC's Hard Drive or on a separate HD used only for the Image?

Do I really need to create a Safe Zone if I have created an Image and am able to boot from the CD drive?

I need to understand this software. I will need to assist the others in my department to use Drive Image 8.0.

Thanks in advance for your help.

John

 

The Secure Zone is optional and is used to store images. If you choose to have a SZ then it should be located on a different drive to the one you are backing up otherwise you may lose the original drive and the backup if the drive becomes faulty.

You don't need to use SZ but it has some benefits:-

Firstly it is created as an unknown partition as far as the operating system is concerned so it doesn't appear in 'My Computer' list of drives. That means that it has some protection from rogue programs, worms etc.

Secondly, TI manages backup space in SZ. Provided SZ is large enough to accomodate 3 backup cycles (each backup cycle being a full image + however many incrementals you wish to append) then, when SZ becomes full, instead of your backup failing with an 'out of space' error TI will free up the space occipied by the oldest backup cycle (full + related incrementals) and re-use the space for the current backup. If you prefer to manage your own backups manually or you enjoy writing scripts to do that for you then you will probably prefer to do your backups outside of SZ but still on a separate drive, either internal or external will do.

Hope that gives you food for thought.

 

Hello John Piotrowski,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

In addition to what pjb024 posted I can say that Acronis Secure Zone is a special hidden partition which is used to store both your images and special boot loader named Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. Acronis Secure Zone can not be accessed by any other application then Acronis True Image 8.0, so it protects your images from almost any software influences such as virus attacks, for example.

In case of the system crash you will need to press F11 button during the PC startup and restore your system from the beforehand created image archive.

Please be aware that we do not recommend you to create Acronis Secure Zone on the removable hard drive, as disconnecting the hard drive with Acronis Secure Zone might cause boot problems.

Please also note that Acronis Secure Zone can not protect your images in case of physical damage of the hard drive.

You can also store your images on any type of the supported removable media such as CDs, DVDs or ZIP-drives, for example. There is no need to create Acronis Secure Zone in this case.

In case of the system crash you will need to boot your PC from Acronis True Image 8.0 Bootable Rescue CD and then restore the system.

Please read more information on how to create, use and manage Acronis Secure Zone in section 3.2 of Acronis True Image 8.0 User's Guide which is available here.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Gentlemen,

I appreciate your assistance and quick response.

John