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Secure Zone in Win 7 Explorer

Thread needs solution

ATI Home 2010 on Win7 64bit.

The user manual says that the SZ will show up in the Explorer under Computer. And that you can double click it and see the contents. Well, my experience is that it does show up under Computer as

Acronis Secure Zone
System Folder

but double clicking it opens up a blank window. Nothing.

I've set folder options to display hidden files and folders and to display protected system stuff. Still get an empty window.

There are two backups in there (according to ATI).

Is it a problem that Explorer can't display the contents of the Secore Zone?

--Larry

PS: I found another post about the same problem but there were no replies. So, a new post!

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Explorer should be able to see the contents of the SZ

What build of TI 2010, and do you have a right click context menu available when you right click a file?

I don't have a W7 VM installed at the moment, so I've only tested this in VM XP, and it works.

I don't have TI installed in a Vista VM, but I'll see if this has the same result.

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ATI Home 2010 with PlusPack build 7046. It was the same with the earlier build.

I have right-click context menus. The context menu for the SZ is very short: Open, Open in a New Window, Create Shortcut.
The context menu for all other things is much longer.

--Larry

I just returned from being out of the country for 5 weeks.
Any more comments/info on this?
--Larry

I have Win 7 Ultimate x64. When I click the Acronis Secure Zone 'drive' in Explorer, I get a dialog asking if I want to run the Acronis ASZ Helper. After about one minute, I see 'AAF14.TIB in the explorer tree, and then I se a list of backup files in the view pane. Each looks like this:

"Backup Tue, May 18 10 15:05:29"

When I right-click it and select 'Proerties", however, Acronis is launched (takes 30 secs), but Acronis UI never appears, nor does any information about the file.

If, however, I double-left-click the file, it opens to show me a drive icon labeled, 'C:'. Double-left clicking it reveals the drive contents at that time. It just takes about 15-20secs to show up.

The fact that Acronis has to launch is annoying; there should be some kind of memory resident process that can handle all of this. Same goes for double-clicking the Acronis trayt icon(s).

On Win7 Home Premium 32 bit, Under Computer, I see the ASZ as a blue backup Volume icon. But no form of clicks can prod it into displaying the right pane's contents information of backups stored in the ASZ. I can see the contents from the ATIH2010 application's Recovery page, but Win7 32 bit Windows Explorer doesn't access the ASZ. I used ATIH2010 to "Move" an archive from an external disk to the ASZ. The archive I moved has two partitions (my former C: and D: and are quite large. The process launched as a "Clone" operation, which concluded successfully. But Windows Explorer shows nothing in the right pane. So I assigned the Partition a drive letter (previously had none) and the ASZ appeared in Computer's right pane with the other drives but with red status bar contents of only a 32MB capacity volume while the remaining 410GB are not shown. There's a separate area now in Disk Management labeled ASZ_Volume (my label), that is only 32MB NTFS in size. So I guess I better move the archive back out of there and delete the ASZ because I sure won't trust my stuff to someplace I can't consistently access with Explorer.

Jeff,
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It is not designed to be made available in Windows Disk Management with a drive letter, and for images to be dragged into or out of the zone. TI is the sole controller of this area. TI should image directly to the ASZ if this is what you want to use, not image to an external drive and then copy/move it to the ASZ

As you have an external drive, it seems unneccessary to need to use the ASZ from the information you have given.

If TI has attempted to perform a clone to the ASZ, I would imagine that the results would not be defined, and I'm surprised that you can still boot the PC.

I think your best bet at this moment, is to delete the ASZ from within TI, and if you really do want to use the SZ , make a new one and create a task to save an image to it.

Does the original image still exist on the external drive?

What size have you allocated for the ASZ?

Are you unable to continue storing images on your external drive?

Don't forget, if your internal drive ceases to work, that will also mean all your images in the SZ will be destroyed as well.

Thanks for the response, Colin.

Again, my issue is simply this: ASZ access via the Windows Explorer (Win7 32-bit) that's described in the ATIH2010 User Guide does not work as specified. I would feel much safer knowing I could access the archives per the user guide description.

I've been experimenting with the ASZ because I just replaced a 2x160GB RAID-0 array (320GB) with two independent 640 GB drives and have a large portion of the 2nd drive (not boot drive) available. I wanted to see how ATIH2010 "manages" the available space there since the User Guide indicates said management to be a major advantage of using the ASZ. I help some other folks with their backup solutions, and some could benifit from a mindless space that never gets full and is safe and reliable when needed.

The previous C: and D: partitions from that old RAID-0 array were successfully moved into the ASZ and they appear in the, ATIH2010 Recovery page. I just set up a scheduled task to backup my Outlook files to the ASZ. The task fired up and completed successfully, and the ATIH2010 Recovery page shows the new addition under the File Backups tab. The only way to know where the archive is located is to right-click it from the ATIH2010 Recovery page and select "Details". It take a while, but the pseudo property sheet finally opens to show the path to the archive.

I only assigned the drive letter to see if that would make it visible under the Windows Explorer details (right) pane. There's still a blank right pane, but the "Computer" right pane now has only the 32MB mini-partition with red markings. I have not nor do I intend to "drag" anything to the ASZ. The Win7 Disk manager still shows the ASZ as a separate partition with the Volume labe name I assigned when I originally created the basic partition.

I believe the archives are actually in the large partition (after the mini one) and they can be accessed from ATIH Recovery page. Again, my issue is that ASZ access via the Windows Explorer (Win7 32-bit) that is described in the ATIH2010 User Guide does not work as specified. I would feel much safer if I knew I could access the archives per the user guide description. Therefore my ASZ testing is done. I will not use the ASZ feature, and have deleted the ASZ and will simply configure as standard basic partition with drive letter, and use ATIH's "Move" to relocate my old images there.