Remove the Secure Zone!!!

The Acronis Secure Zone seems to be more trouble than its worth!

Can I remove the secure zone, without destroying all the back up images within it and if so, how?

Thanks

 

No, you cannot.

 

But if you do remove it use the manage secure zone wizard. It is then easy to allocate the freed space to existing partitions.

Xpilot

 

I have never used the Acronis Secure Zone, but if it's implemented as a hidden partition (that ATI unhides when needed), then I would expect that a disk partitioning utility would be able to unhide that partition to make the existing backup files visible to the OS (although this depends on the file system that the Secure Zone partition uses, of which I have no clue). It may also be possible that such a utility provides browsing of files within a hidden partition and copying to another, non-hidden partition. This latter option would be a safer alternative. Again, though, this depends on the file format used in the Secure Zone partition and thus whether or not the utility can read the format.

Of course, fooling around with partitions is not for the faint of heart (I would expect most owners of a disk partitioning utility to be familiar with its operation and the resulting consequences), and I would advocate such a solution only for those who have experience managing partitions in general. I invite others more experienced in ATI and the Secure Zone to add any Secure Zone nuances that could impact success in this strategy or lead to trashing the system.

I suggest making a full image backup to a non-Secure Zone target prior to such manipulation.

Doug

 

as far as i know the secure zone is indeed just a hidden partition,
i think the TI support guy once mentioned it to be a FAT32 partition,
whose type flag is just changed by TI to some special/exotic format/value
thus making windows ignore this partition...

if You need the backups and You own e.g. acronis disk director do the following:
a) create a BartPE cd or download a e.g. knoppix "live" dvd
b) boot from a diskDirector rescue media
c) change the flag of the secure-zone partition to fat32
d) reboot using BartPE or the live-dvd
e) copy files from unhidden partition to existing windows partitions
f) restore old/previous flag of secure zone
g) reboot to windows (with unchanged partitions)
h) test if Your copied images are usable (valid AND restorable)
i) delete (or keep) the secure zone using TI (depending on result of step h)

maybe You somehow can even get the content of the secure zone
directly using a linux tool/command
(e.g. "dd" or simply by 'forced' mounting the secure-zone as fat32 partition)
...but i wouldn't recommend messing around with precious backups this way !


bottom

 

Many, many thanks guys!