Restore Points in Secure Zone?

Greetings,

I have set up a 20GB secure zone. I have built a full backup of my C: drive (point ONE). I would NOW like to perform an incremental backup on my C: drive (creating point TWO)...but here is my question...

I cannot seem to find:
1) A way to browse the images/backups stored in the secure zone.
2) Any evidence WHATSOEVER that I have the ability to restore my C: drive from POINT ONE or from POINT TWO (once created). If I do an incremental backup, do I lose the ability to restore from POINT ONE I cannot find any information about this, NOT IN THE USERS GUIDE, NOT IN THE FAQ. When I start a RESTORE from the current POINT ONE in the Secure Zone, I get no option to select an image (restore point) AT ALL. NOR DO I GET TO SEE THE COMMENTS I ENTERED, OR ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THE ORIGINAL IMAGE AT ALL.

Please let me know what my options are here. If I create an incremental backup, will the restore process allow me to select point ONE or point TWO

Edward Holman

 

Your best option is not to use the SZ at all. It is a feature that has outlived its usefulness. Better to go with an external hard drive to keep your backups.

 

You do not say which version and build no. of Acronis TI that you are using. However in this case it is not that important.

To browse secure zone images you will need to mount your chosen image, they are kept by date and time of creation. Once mounted you can browse it in Windows explorer just like any other drive. You can copy files and folders from it and in the latest builds you can even make amendments to it.

You can choose point 1 or point 2 as your restore basis. If you go on adding incremental images the zone will eventually become log jammed. Before this happens it is best to create a new full image though it can be left till the zone is full. The new full image will kick the first image into touch and the orphaned incrementals will follow in due course.

My own choice is to only store full images and then they recycle with no further user input.
I have never made use of the Notes facility but I am fairly sure that if you select an image to restore and work you way through the screens they will be revealed. This is quite safe to do and you can back out at any point prior to hitting the proceed button.

As to restorability evidence there are several layers of reassurance such as running a validation of the secure zone images. In the current version ALL images are verified,strange but true.
Mounting and browsing gives another degree of assurance but the only 100% method is to restore to a spare drive. This way is the ultimate proof and no risk has been taken.

Xpilot

 

The option to restore from another point is not present while you only have one backup. Create an Incremental or differential, and you'll then be offered a choice of restore points.

You can also go further into the Restore Process, to see your comments entered at the time of archive creation. As long as you don't say, Commit, to the Pending Operation, you can Cancel before actually restoring.

A safer way to learn is to make an Image of some data, ideally data you don't need or copies of data, and experiment with those. Even safer yet would be to restore to another partition or hard drive.

Regards

 

This does not help. I just booted the Acronis Boot CD which I burned from the boot media tool. I loaded Acronis full, and it DOES NOT RECOGNIZE the USB drive I have plugged in.

How in the world can you use an external hard drive if Acronis TI does not support USB drives? ? ?

 

Now is the time to come up with a few details about your system and the version and build number that you are using.

Acronis does work and works well with USB drives so there is something, perhaps leading edge, about your system that the Acronis CD drivers have not yet caught up with.

Xpilot.

 

I'm using Acronis Version 9.0 built 3677. I just purchased it like, 2 days ago, so surely there isn't anything too much more recent.

I have an EPOX 8kta3+ mobo, Athlon 2600+ or there abouts, 1.5 GB RAM, nothing too cutting edge here, it's 3+ years old. I have a pretty generic "Mobile Disk" external hard drive enclosure with a 100GB laptop hard drive in it. The mobo has 2 40GB hard drives hooked up to the Highpoint RAID controller.

Currently I have an image on the USB drive, which I am trying to restore to the RAID array. There are no other (i.e. IDE) hard drives hooked up to the mobo.

Before I rebooted with the Acronis CD, Windows recognized the USB drive with no problems.

 

I just tried unplugging, the re-plugging, the USB drive, no help. I also plugged the drive directly into the mobo, verses the USB 2.0 PCI card with 4 slots, no help there either.

 

Several easy steps before it gets complicated.
1. In Windows give all your hard drives an easily recognised name. This is because in the rescue environment different drive letters may be assigned by Linux.
2. Plugin and fire up the USB drive before booting from the recovery CD.
3. On the recovery selection screen make sure you select Full Mode. Your cursor actually hovers over Safe Mode which does not support USB amongst several other items.
4. Expand all the items in the left hand pane, you may have to wait a few seconds for the Tree to appear.

You should now be, as they say, well on the way to recovery . However if the USB drive is still not accessable move on to the harder stuff.

Create a Bart PE CD with a True Image plug in. Make sure you use the version 9 plug in that is available in the Build 3677 download.
The reason for using this recovery CD is that it uses Windows drivers which you know work with your particular USB/Mbo' chipset combination.
There is another benefit that such recoveries, in many instances, run a lot faster than those under the standard CD.

There are several helpful threads on Bart PE CD creation.

Just out of interest have you solved your Secure Zone problems ? Note that a secure zone is not suitable for use on a USB drive.

Having changed the object of your enquiry it would really have been better to start a new thread, particularly as many more people use USB drives than use the secure zone so they may not even look at this thread.

Xpilot

 

Hello,

I've tried both having the USB drive plugged in before boot, and plugging in after boot, no success. I have always selected the "full mode".

I've not had time to try the other options yet, I'll get to it in a couple of weeks as I am going out of town for a while. Thanks for the assistance.