Secure Zone will not create

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by lance1962, Jul 3, 2007.

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  1. lance1962

    lance1962 Registered Member

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    Hi - I am using the latest build of Trueimage home version 10 on Windows Vista Ultimate.

    I am trying to create a secure zone so that I can use the startup recovery manager - however when I try to create the secure zone - acronis says the computer has to be restarted to do this - computer restarts the acronis screen comes up - and quickly flashes off again and windows restarts and I have no secure zone.

    I have a 250GB hdd divided into two partitions and am telling acronis to take 6gb from the boot partition.

    Anyone have any idea'so_O

    Thanks
    Lance
     
  2. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    Try creating the SZ by using the bootable True Image cd which you can create from the installed software.
     
  3. Xpilot

    Xpilot Registered Member

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    Just a gentle steer away from using the Start up Recovery Manager. TI recoveries all take place in the Acronis/Linux environment. This applies whether you start from within Windows using the Manager or directly from the recovery CD. In either case the system has to re-boot and the recovery will take the same time. Should you ever have a non bootable hard drive problem you would have to start from the recovery CD as the recovery manager would no longer function. So I always recover from the rescue CD in all circumstances even though I have a viable secure zone.
    The SRM also has to modify the MBR to function although this can be easily reversed while the computer is working it could lead to boot problems in a disaster situation.

    Being unable to create a secure zone could be because you are trying to make it too small. I believe there is an inbuilt check to ensue that there is at least room for one and a half compressed images though I am happy to be corrected. If one is going to actually use the zone to store backup images I would put the size to an absolute minimum of three and a half time the uncompressed used volume to make it worthwhile.

    Xpilot
     
  4. Hansepans

    Hansepans Registered Member

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    Recently I could not restore, neither from my NAS (Thecus YESbox N2100), nor from my external HDD (I will put that in a different thread). Therefore I now want to create Secure Zone to avoid future problems.
    My computer is a Medion MD8818 (Intel Core 2 Duo processor E6300 with Windows XP) with HDD 320 GB in 2 partitions of 300GB NTFS and 20 GB FAT32. The Acronis drivers have been updated as advised in another thread.
    After starting the SZ install in Windows, the blue Linux screen reports "analyzing, locking and checking" 100% but SZ is not created.
    A try through ATI bootdisk and ATI Full Version results in "not found any HDD's".
    Another try through ATI bootdisk and Safe Version enables the installation procedure, but then reports: "Files required not available; run ATI from Windows to copy missing files to SZ" (seeing the above this does not help).
    My fantasy has run out to find other solutions. Can anyone help?

    Thanks, Hans
     
  5. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello lance1962,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Please download the latest version of Acronis drivers, unpack the archive and install unpacked MSI package.

    If the issue persists, please collect some information to let us investigate it thoroughly:

    - Replace C:\WINDOWS\system32\snapapi.dll with the one from the downloaded SnapAPI archive;
    - Reproduce the issue and collect the log file without closing any application windows (including the error message windows if there are any). The log file will be created at C:\ . The name of the log file will be snapapi [date-time].log

    Please create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

    Please also try creating Acronis Secure Zone using Acronis Bootable Rescue Media, as others in this thread suggested.

    Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

    Thank you.
    --
    Marat Setdikov
     
  6. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Hansepans,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Could you please clarify, what version and build of Acronis True Image are you using? You can find the full version name and build number by going to Help -> About... menu in the main program window.

    Please try booting with "acpi=off noapic" parameter as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

    Note that if you use an older version of Acronis True Image (version 8.0 or lower) you should press F11 button when the "Starting Acronis Loader..." message appears and not when the selection screen appears (Acronis True Image 8.0 Bootable Rescue CD for example does not have any selection screen).

    If the issue persists, please collect some information to let us investigate it thoroughly:

    Please create Acronis Report and Linux system information (sysinfo.txt) as it is described in Acronis Help Post. Please keep all drives in question connected and powered on during the creation process.

    Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

    Thank you.
    --
    Marat Setdikov
     
  7. Hansepans

    Hansepans Registered Member

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    Hello Marat,

    Following all your instructions unfortunately did not have a positive result. I also started a separate thread "Recovery from NAS and ext. HDD failed". As these two problems are probably related I have submitted a request for technical support on both items.
    I will come back here to keep the forum posted on the results.

    Thanks and greetings, Hans
     
  8. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    You are having a tough time, but what I'm curious ablut is why you want to bother with a SecureZone when you already have a second partition on your hard drive.

    You can simply store images of the C partition on the second partition as long as there is room. I do this frequently to have a backup quickly accessible. It won't provide any protection if the drive fails, but it's great if you just want to recover from a bad hardware or software installation.

    I never use the Recovery Manager. It changes the MBR, and I prefer a standard MBR.
     
  9. Hansepans

    Hansepans Registered Member

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    In fact I do not really fancy the Secure Zone and meanwhile skipped the idea. I do wonder though why it could not be done and I asked Acronis Technical Dept. about it . I thought it would be a more reliable backup destination, as the restore from my NAS (Thecus YESbox N2100) failed.
    The second partition of my harddisk is only 20 GB and is in use for software, tools and drivers supplied with my Medion MD8818 computer. An alternative for my NAS could be my second HDD, also 320GB, mounted on top of the computer housing and connected through hdmi, but I prefer the NAS, that I use for central storage and (SyncBack) backups.
    I do not know what changes are made to the MBR by the Recovery Manager, and whether that would be a problem. Maybe you can tell me more about that.

    Thanks, Hans
     
  10. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    The Recovery Manager has to change the MBR so that a Press F11... message is seen when you boot up.

    When you boot from the TI Recovery CD, what drives can you see? If you can't see a particular drive, it's certain that you won't be able to restore from that location.
     
  11. GroverH

    GroverH Registered Member

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    Click on the Useful Guides Link below and then click in the link to "Secure Zone & Startup Recovery Manger". Note particularly the threads by Acronis support.
     
  12. Hansepans

    Hansepans Registered Member

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    John, thanks. Okay, the change of the MBR in connection with F11 is clear (see also below).
    Booting from the TI Recovery CD with F11 (quiet acpi=off noapic) and Acronis Full results in error message popup "not found any HDD's". After clicking this away I get the Backup Archive Validation Wizard with Archive Selection Screen showing \My Computer\Network. However, they do not show the folder structure. This is what I hope that the Acronis Tech. Dept. can remedy.

    GroverH, From your link I see that changing the MBR has the risk that the disk becomes unusable. In my case my computer has become instable when trying to create a Secure Zone of 110GB (HDD C: had 250GB free).
    Reboot resulted in error "TrueImageService.exe; cannot initialize DLL as the Windows work station is being closed". SZ was not created.
    In another Reboot I had to manually close Skype3, after which I got the ATI blue screen reporting Analyzing, Locking, Checking partitions, that were later reported as 100% OK.
    However, the Secure Zone was not created and I got several computer problems:
    Skype did not connect to the internet; the Start button and the icons in the bottom right corner did not react to clicking, although I could start programs by the icons on my desktop.
    After reboot I tried to reinstall Skype, which however "could not close down", nor could I close it through Ctrl/Alt/Del; the icon remained on the bottom right corner. I then uninstalled Skype3 (and SkypeLink / Waitec E-Zi PhoneBox). In spite of this Skype did start up after reboot and shows a functional icon in the bottom right, although Skype3 is no longer in the Config. Screen Software list.
    Later on - when making this text in Word and being connected to the forum through Firefox - my computer froze and had to be restarted.
    I have the possibility to do a system restore to the day before doing this all, but I will await the reaction of the Acronis Tech. Dept. first.
     
  13. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    Not being able to see any hard drives in the Acronis Linux environment (the TI Recvery CD and when TI reboots from within Windows) is a real killer. This tells me that your hardware is not supported well in Linux, and there is often no cure for that.

    The alternative is to create a BartPE boot disk with the TrueImage plugin. There are explanations of how to do this in the stickies at the top of the forum page. The BartPE disk runs windows from a CD, so Windows drivers are available. That should allow your hard drive, USB drive and network to be used normally.
     
  14. Hansepans

    Hansepans Registered Member

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    In the past few days I already tried the BartPE disk, but as it did not have the TI plug-in this was unsuccessful. I will make a TI plugin version and give it another go. Before that I will make a Windows system restore as my system is now very unstable. I suppose this will not interfere with any advice of Acronis TD that I am awaiting.
     
  15. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Hansepans,

    Could you please let us know your Acronis request number which was sent to you in autoreply to your letter? We will find out how the investigation of your issue is going. If you have not received an autoreply then please send us a Private Message containing your e-mail address.

    Thank you.
    --
    Marat Setdikov
     
  16. Hansepans

    Hansepans Registered Member

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    Marat, The number is 1068567. I am looking forward to any further news.
    Hans
     
  17. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Hansepans,

    We are really sorry for the inconvenience you might have experienced because of the delay with the response that occured due to technical reasons. You will be contacted as soon as possible. We will do our best to avoid such procrastinations in the future.

    Thank you.
    --
    Marat Setdikov
     
  18. Hansepans

    Hansepans Registered Member

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    Re: Backup restore failed

    Hello Marat, Many thanks for your effort.
    From Acronis Tech. Support I received an iso file to make a startup CDR, but unfortunately this had the same result as the rescue boot disk I had made myself. It does boot, but choosing Manage SZ / Validate / Recovery results in Error E000101F4 / HDD's not found. When closing the error popup \My Computer\Network are shown, but no folders.

    I told them that the matter of SZ is not my main problem. I merely tried this as a workaround when not being able to restore from my NAS. Therefore I asked them just to focus on the restore problem.
    I tried to solve this by means of creating a BartPE CDR with Acronis TI plugin, but have so far failed in doing so. See thread: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=180184.

    Regards, Hans
     
  19. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Re: Backup restore failed

    Hello Hansepans,

    To continue investigation of the issue could you please use the ISO image of Acronis True Image Bootable CD you were provided and do the following?

    - Boot your computer from the Bootable CD;

    - When the GUI (Graphical User Interface) is loaded press CTRL+ALT+F2 to get to the command prompt;

    - After # prompt appears input the following commands to create Linux system information (sysinfo.txt).

    cd tmp
    mkdir mntdir
    mount /devfs/floppy/0 mntdir
    sysinfo > mntdir/sysinfo.txt
    umount mntdir

    Having created sysinfo.txt, please send it to Acronis Customer Service Department so we could investigate it.

    If you do not have a floppy drive then use commands provided in this previous post to save the sysinfo.txt file to USB flash drive.

    Thank you.
    --
    Aleksandr Isakov
     
  20. Hansepans

    Hansepans Registered Member

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    Aleksandr, Thanks for your instructions.
    As I donot have a floppy drive I continued as follows as per
    https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=678565&postcount=5
    and I got the list of partitions/drives. Then I did:

    # mkdir /mnt/tmp
    # mount -t auto /devfs/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc /mnt/tmp
    This gave: error EXT3-fs: unable to read superblock

    # mount -t vfat /devfs/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc /mnt/tmp
    This gave: No response

    # mount -t ext3fs AND ext2fs /devfs/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc /mnt/tmp
    This gave: sysinfo (on the next line)

    # mkdir /mnt/tmp/sysinfo
    #ls /mnt/tmp
    This resulted (only) in: sysinfo (on the next line)

    So, unfortunately I cannot produce the sysinfo.txt file.

    Question: would an external floppy drive connected to USB enable me to produce the sysinfo.txt to the floppy disc? If so, I will buy one and try that.

    If you have any further suggestions please let me know.

    For good order's sake, please note that I am presently also in contact with Vladimir Zakharov of Acronis Tech. Service. I sent him today on his request screenshots of the error messages after booting with the Acronis rescue disk.
     
  21. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Hansepans,

    We are sorry for inconvenience, the instructions in that post were somewhat incorrect. Please proceed as follows to create Linux sysinfo on a flash drive:

    Please boot from the Acronis True Image rescue disc and press F11 key after the "Starting Acronis Loader..." message appears and you get to the selection screen. After you get the "Linux Kernel Settings" prompt, please remove the word "quiet", click on the "OK" button and select the Full version menu item to boot. Wait for # prompt to appear. Please insert a Flash disk to a USB port and issue the following commands:

    # cat /proc/partitions

    This will give you the list of partitions/drives available in your system.

    For example:
    8 0 127744 scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc
    8 1 127744 scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1
    3 0 80417183 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc
    3 1 10241406 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1
    3 2 20482875 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2
    3 3 1020127 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part3

    Flash drive is visible as 'scsi'. If there are some scsi devices in your system you may find your flash by partition/drive size. If the flash is partitioned it will bring the list of partitions as well.

    Then you need to create a mount point for your flash and mount it.
    # mkdir /mnt/tmp
    # mount -t auto /devfs/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 /mnt/tmp

    There can be some warning messages but it is safe to ignore them. If mount fails you may try to use 'vfat' (if the flash is formatted to FAT file system) or 'ext3fs' or 'ext2fs' (if its formatted to ext3 or ext2) parameter instead of 'auto' .

    Make a directory on your flash drive to save files to it:
    # mkdir /mnt/tmp/sysinfo

    Check whether the drive is mounted correctly for writing access:
    #ls /mnt/tmp

    This will give a list of files/folders located on the drive.

    Save 'sysinfo' and unmount the flash drive:
    # sysinfo > /mnt/tmp/sysinfo/sysinfo.txt
    # umount /mnt/tmp

    The instructions in that post were also corrected.

    Thank you.
    --
    Marat Setdikov
     
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2007
  22. Hansepans

    Hansepans Registered Member

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    Marat, Thanks a lot! With your instructions I could create the sysinfo.txt file. I sent it just now to the Acronis Tech. Service in a reply to their last e-mail under the Acronis ref. nr. I hope this will enable you/them to make further progress in solving my problem.
    Regards, Hans
     
  23. Hansepans

    Hansepans Registered Member

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    After frequent e-mail contact - unfortunately sofar without a solution to my backup problem - I now suddenly can no longer get into contact with Acronis Support by mail.
    Everytime that I send a mail to Acronis Support I get back 2 reactions.

    1) "Returned mail; see transcript for details" containing:

    The original message was received at Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:14:24 -0400
    from smtp50.hccnet.nl [62.251.0.47]

    ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
    newprovtest@acrostorage.acronis.ru
    (reason: 550 Host unknown)
    (expanded from: <support@acronis.com>)

    ----- Transcript of session follows -----
    550 5.1.2 newprovtest@acrostorage.acronis.ru... Host unknown (Name server: acrostorage.acronis.ru: host not found)



    Reporting-MTA: dns; mx1.acronis.com
    Received-From-MTA: DNS; smtp50.hccnet.nl
    Arrival-Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:14:24 -0400

    Final-Recipient: RFC822; support@acronis.com
    X-Actual-Recipient: RFC822; newprovtest@acrostorage.acronis.ru
    Action: failed
    Status: 5.1.2
    Remote-MTA: DNS; acrostorage.acronis.ru
    Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 Host unknown
    Last-Attempt-Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:14:24 -0400


    2) "Re: [Acronis #1068567] Secure Zone and Restore impossible", containing my message.

    Below I quote the complete text of my last message in the hope that it will reach its destination through this medium. If anyone knows what is going wrong, please let me know.

    quote

    Vladimir,

    I do not understand what is going on, but I keep getting back my e-mails
    sent to you in response to your questions.
    I hope this message will reach you. If not I will post it in the
    Wilders/Acronis forum as the last option that I have.

    Regards,
    Hans

    Acronis Customer Service Department wrote:
    > Hello Vladimir,
    >
    > Twice I tried to reply to your e-mail of July 25th, but my message came
    > back as undeliverable. I also tried to respond throught the Technical
    > Service screen on the Acronis site. Can you confirm to have received
    > this? For good order's sake I repeat your and my message als follows:
    >
    > quote:
    > I started up with the rescue disk you sent me on july 23rd.
    > In a flash I saw a black screen with a.o. "No volume groups found".
    > Through the ATI menu / Validate Backup I get the same error as before.
    > After that I get a screen with My Computer and (after clicking on that)
    > Network icon, but clicking on Network gives no reaction at all. So there
    > are no machines in the Network places. Inserting the IP of my NAS does
    > not do anything as the Next button is inactive.
    > In Options I get the same screen as sent to you before, viz. with the
    > data of my computer. After <OK> I get "Saving network Setting".
    >
    > Regards,
    > Hans
    >
    >
    > Acronis Customer Service Department schreef:
    > > Hello Hans,
    > >
    > > Please try to use the following ISO image.
    > >
    > >
    > ……… elxugvoqwnghfshkskfp/support/ISO/26/TrueImage_English_kernel26.iso
    > >
    > > Then please check if the problem persists.
    > >
    > > Thank you.
    > >
    > > Note that you can quickly find the answers to your questions in
    > Acronis Support
    > > Knowledge Base at http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/support/kb/ .
    > > --
    > > Best regards,
    > > Vladimir Zakharov
    > >
    > > Acronis, Inc.
    > > 23 3rd Avenue
    > > Burlington, MA 01801 USA
    > > http://www.acronis.com/
    > >
    > > Acronis Customer Service Department
    > > http://www.acronis.com/my/support/
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > unquote
    >
    >

    unquote

    I hope that this message will reach its destination through this medium.
    If anyone knows what is going wrong, please let me know.

    Thanks, Hans
     
  24. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Hansepans,

    We are terribly sorry for the inconvenience. We had some problems with our e-mail server; it's working now and we successfully received your e-mails. You willl be contacted as soon as possible.

    Thank you.
    --
    Marat Setdikov
     
  25. Hansepans

    Hansepans Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jul 6, 2007
    Posts:
    18
    Marat, Thanks for your message. However, the server is still not working. My today's (repeat) messages of 11:04 hours (WET) and of 16:18 hours were both returned undeliverable. If there is another mail address to which I can send my message, please let me have a private message.
    Regards, Hans
     
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