'Secure Zone' problem.

As a computer nerd, I hope that some of you computer geeks out there can help me. When trying to create a 'Secure Zone' I get a message about bad blocks. What's that about?
WinXP (SP2) Dell 4700 P4
Acronis Vs. 8.0 (build 90

 

Seems I can't even type a proper post. Since build 908 probably doesn't exist I should correct my initial posting. The build that I downloaded was 903. Sorry.

Merv.

 

Start Windows Explorer.
Right click on the C drive and select Properties from the menu.
Click on the Tools tab.
Click the Check now button under Error Checking.
Click on both boxes so they are checked.
Click the Start now button.
You will be told that you need to reboot your computer.

If you have only one partition, reboot. Otherwise repeat the above for each drive letter on your hard drive. Then reboot.

Windows will do a thorough test of your hard drive and correct any logical errors and mark out any bad sectors. After that, you should be able to make the image.

By the way, bad sectors are not normal. If your hard drive has bad sectors, it may be failing. Be sure to repeat the above procedure after a few days to see if there are more bad sectors. If new bad sectors appear, the drive is dying. It could fail completely at any time, so backup your data and replace it.

 

Hello Merv,

Please download and install the latest build (937) of Acronis True Image 8.0 which is available at: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/updates/

To get access to updates you should create an account at:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/
then log in and use your serial number to register your software.

Please also check each partition of your hard drive by Windows utility:

- For Windows 9x please use Windows menu Start\Run
then enter the command "scandskw" and test all drives;

- For Windows XP please use Windows menu Start\Run, then enter the command
"chkdsk c: /r" "chkdsk d: /r" for every partition of your hard drive.

Please note that you will need to reboot your computer in order to scan the system partition.

If the problem still persists after installing the update and checking the hard drive then please create Acronis Report as it is described in Acronis Help Post and send it to support@acronis.com along with the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Okay, I did everything that Alexey Popov suggested, and I still live on that ominous bad block. So I am sending the system-utility.NFO file and the report.txt generated by acronisreport.exe.

I will post the results of this investigation here as I suspect there are others who would like to know the outcome.

 

Why didn't you say that the first time?

Here is the answer we all waited for... it reminds me a bit of the longest line at the motor vehicle registry, when you finally get to the front the person tells you to go wait at the next window, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next.

Way to go Acronis for legendary customer service!!!

Subject: [Acronis #344355] Bad Block message

Thank you for using Acronis software (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/).

Please note that we are not able to solve your hardware problems. In order to solve them, please contact your hard drive vendor. Unfortunately we do not have a software that is able to transform bad blocks on your hard drive to the good ones.


Thank you for taking the time to contact us.
--
Best regards,
Andrey Kovalenko


Acronis, Inc.
395 Oyster Point Blvd., Suite 115
South San Francisco, CA 94080 USA
http://www.acronis.com/


Acronis Customer Service Department
e-mail: support@acronis.com

 

Re: Why didn't you say that the first time?

Hello Bad Blocker,

We are really sorry for the inconveniences.

Please accept our apologies for Andrey's answer. It is truth that your problem is not in Acronis True Image. The information about bad sectors is stored on the partition and this info is restored from the image (or cloned from the original disk). When Acronis True Image (any edition) creates an image archive of a partition or a disk that has bad sectors (marked in the file system, e.g. using ScanDisk or chkdsk), it records the information regarding the bad sectors as well. So, if one restores the image archive, you will get these bad sectors on the new location. The sectors will not be actually bad, but they will be marked as bad in the file system (because it has been restored without any changes).

In order to avoid transferring bad sectors to the new location, one should restore the image archive resizing the partition(s). Considering that it is impossible to resize partitions when restoring an image of a whole hard disk, there is no way to avoid restoring bad sectors in such a case. It is only possible to eliminate the bad sectors by restoring the partitions separately with resizing.

Thank you.
--
Irina Shirokova

 

I'm also receiving 'Unable to resize partition with bad blocks' error message when trying to create Secure Zone on hard drive that image will be taken from. The last post from Acronis Support was in reference to restoring image with bad blocks, but did not address the error when trying to create the Secure Zone. I sent following message to tech support 3 days ago and have not received reply!

"When trying to create Secure Zone using True Image 9.0 I receive Error: Unable to resize partition with bad blocks. I've run Check Disk twice to fix bad sectors - still receive error message. What to do?"

 

Hello tkordus,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Could you please let me know your Acronis request # which was sent to you in autoreply to your letter? I will find out how the investigation of your issue is going.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

Yes,

It is #454775.

 

Hello tkordus,

As far as I can see, our support engineer Konstantin Karikov has already replied to your support request #454775.

The point is that the report you have provided shows several bad blocks on your system partition and so it can not be resized using Acronis software (it needs to be resized to take place for Acronis Secure Zone).

The reason why Acronis software does not allow resizing of the partitions that contain bad blocks is that this operation is not safe and might result in a complete data loss.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or report any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Hi,

That's very unfortunate - I would like to know have this in advance of purchasing this software. I downloaded and read through the User's Guide - there was no mention of this.

Now to address the situation at hand - I have a Maxtor 300 Gig external hard drive connected via USB. Can I create a Secure Zone on the external drive and be able to access it through Startup Recovery Manager? Also, I plan on creating separate partitions to backup no less than 3 different systems to the same Maxtor external drive - can I create a Secure Zone in each partition for each backup, on the same external hard drive?

Thank you,
Tom Kordus

 

I'm not sure if more tha n i secure zone can be created on a drive. Personally have never tried it, but would doubt it.

More importantly, what is your reasoning for wanting 3 secure zones, much less 1?

 

Hello tkordus,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Yes, you can create Acronis Secure Zone on the external hard drive. However, we do not recommend to create it on a detachable drive. Please take a look at this FAQ article.

I'm afraid no. There can be only one Acronis Secure Zone located on a computer.

If you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva