Secure Zone - How do I recover from this mess?
My problem relates to a Lenovo Y730 Idea Pad running Vista Home Premium, SP-2 and all current updates, with a 300 GB hard drive originally formatted to a 249 GB C:/ and a 31GB D:/ which is used for the OS installation and Lenovo One-Touch Recovery. After 18 months use, it became necessary to do a clean reinstall of Vista, a rather unpleasant job.
When everything was back in order, I started the process of an Acronis True Image Home 2009 backup. It asked if I wanted to establish an Acronis Secure Zone which sounded like a good idea at the time so I said yes, not knowing exactly what it was. When the process was over, C:/ was reduced to 120 GB and came up with a low disk space warning. I went to 'Manage ASZ' to undo the operation and ended up with five partitions, lost all my restore points and lost the Lenovo recovery backups. Here are the disk details from various sources.
From Vista Disk Management in this order:
Unnamed 1.17GB Unallocated
C: 120.14 NTFS System
Lenovo D: 30.53 NTFS Logical Drive
Unnamed 14.76 GB EISA Configuration
Unnamed 131.49 GB Unallocated
From diskpart:
Partition 0 Extended 31 GB 121 GB Offset
Partition 1 Primary 120 GB 1200 MB Offset
Partition 2 OEM 15 GB 152 GB Offset
Partition 3 Logical 31 GB 121 GB Offset
From Acronis:
Unallocated 1.172 capacity unallocated
NTFS (unlabeled) primary 14.76 capacity 6.571 free FS:NTFS Partition
0x12 (Compaq setup)
Unallocated 131.5 Unallocated
NTFS (Lenovo) (D:) Log 30.53 capacity 28.66 free NTFS
NTFS (Unlabeled) (C:) pri, act 120.1 capacity 6.370 free NTFS
How do I get back to my original configuration without losing data and without reinstalling Vista?
No backup and no recovery disk. Now what?
(What version of Acronis are you using? It would help if you could post a picture of your DiskManagement graphical view of the disk.
Hopefully, some Lenova users with Vista can respond and help you to identify your partitions and their correct sequence.
Visit the Lenova website and forums and look for information about your computer. Maybe there you can confirm their original size and sequence and names. Also confirm that one of the partitions is supposed to be logical.
My first actions would be rename the partitions and then perform a full disk backup of your disk in its current condition.
If you have TrueImage installed, create a bootable Rescue CD. If not installed, return to your Acronis registration page and download the Bootable Media ISO file.
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/updates/
Burn this iso image onto a CD as a TrueImage Rescue CD. More info about the iso download can be found within my signature index below under items 2-G, 2-F and 2-E. Here is a link to free ImgBurn
http://download.cnet.com/ImgBurn/3000-2646_4-10847481.html
Boot from the Acronis TrueImage Rescue CD and create a full disk backup which includes all the partitions including the unwanted, hidden and all partitions. Have the backup validated as part of its creation.
Once you have a good backup, then you can experiment some with the disk partitions.
After you have a good full disk backup, then
Go to this link and Download the Partition Wizard Cd file ( a nice tutorial also available there)
http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html
Burn this downloaded iso file as a bootable Partition Wizard CD.
Boot from the Partition Wizard CD and this partitioning utility can then be used to re-arrange the space assigned to each partition.
Current status:From Vista Disk Management in this order:
.....Unnamed 1.17GB Unallocated
.....C: 120.14 NTFS System
.....Lenovo D: 30.53 NTFS Logical Drive
.....Unnamed 14.76 GB EISA Configuration
.....Unnamed 131.49 GB Unallocated
Assuming that informtion from the Windows Disk Management is correct, then
Boot the Partition Wizard CD.
You will only need to use the Move/Resize option. Do not try to copy a partition, etc.
I can't give you specific instructions but in general here is what you want to do.
1. Don't mess with or move the beginning unallocated space of 1.17GB. I believe you are may be reporting as GB and it may be reading as MB. This beginning unallocated space must be retained in order for Vista to boot.
2. Click on the 14.76 Eisa partition and drag it to the right side margin.
3. Click on the 20.53 Lenova partition and drag it to the right touching the Eisa partiton.
4. Hopefully, now the unallocated space has been relocated between the 120GB partition and the Lenova partition.
Now you can grab hold of the right side of the 120GB partition and drag the right border so it consumes all the unallocated space and becomes 251.63gb in size.
If you like what you see, you can choose Apply to implement the changes.
Or, you can click Discard changes and begin again.
Let us know how you make out. If all goes well, don't forget to make a new backup of everything again.
Problem solved! I just ordered an iMac. I may play around with the Lenovo after I migrate my stuff to the Mac, otherwise, anyone want to buy a Y730?