Checking Acronis Secure Zone for bad sectors?
Checking Acronis Secure Zone for bad sectors?
Acronis True Image Home 2009
What is the best way to check the hard disk space occupied by Acronis Secure Zone for
presence of bad sectors?
Only to free up this space (disabling ASZ) and then check by tool from other vendor?
Any other possibilities?
How well does does Acronis TI checks this space before using it?
Sure, integrity check of file system as important as well.
I have following reason for asking this question:
ASZ only used for Try&Decide and for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.
All images/backup I am producing with ATI Home do land on two other mediums.
The question arises, if some when the disk space occupied by ASZ should get any damages (bad sectors or system file inconsistency) can TI recognize it in prior before using these regions? Or maybe no other chance than getting hanged up as soon as it attempts to write into such region?
How is the situation?
Do I need to perform such checks regularly on my own or can I rely on TI and its abilities?
About once a week I remove the current main hard drive and replace it with the previous week's hard drive. This is a simple operation with a removable hard drive bay fitted. The next step is to restore the latest secure zone image.
This way of working proves the integrity of a sample of my daily secure zone backup images. It has other advantages such as removing the need to validate backups either when created or before a restore. However the greatest value is that there is never any need to overwrite a current working hard drive.
This is a way of working I have been using for several years because it avoids all chances of data loss even if a restore fails.
Your strategy seems to be excellent.
However, it and its elements doesn't fit to my backup concept.
In long terms I can consider to apply your strategy on my machine, but it can't be a revolution.
At least in middle terms I will have to live with my concept.
Anybody else can say if Acronis TI will recognize problems in file system or bad sectors
in disk regions occupied by Acronis Secure Zone yet long before TI attempts to use these sections?
ATI will not look for disk problems on the ASZ before attempting to use the information stored there. You can request that a validation be run prior to recovering a backup stored in the ASZ, but this is not available for T&D.
If you use T&D, I suggest you disable ASRM while you use T&D, and you make sure you have a disk image you feel comfortable using (not too old) in case T&D fails on you.
That're very bad news.
Because TI gets hanged up for ever as soon as
it encounters any problems in disk system (physical or logical).
Yes, this is the risk with backups or any other file. They can get corrupted. This is why I copy my backups to another destination from time to time and I make sure I do a full backup from time to time, in addition to validating and even restoring from time to time from the recovery CD.
There is nothing worse that finding out your backup is corrupt when you disk is dead. Although the odds are low, I had this bad experience.
As mentioned previously I am using the ASZ only for recovery manager and for try&decide.
No backups/images are stored here. So I can't verify this space by recovering from image.
OS on-board tools do not also have no chance to check this disc space.
It stays only under ATI control.
Right.
Check this out. It might help. Not for the faint of heart, though...
As you do not use the secure zone to store backup images but are worried about the disk integrity of the zone you could adopt completely different approach.
Assuming you are making full backup images elsewhere and you are content that they are recoverable there is a viable alternative to Try & Decide. My own method is to do whatever experimentation I choose on my live system,not using T&d at all. If I want to get back to normal it is a simple step to restore the whole disk back to its prior state.
I have never considered using the startup recovery manager because it adds little in the way of convenience and can cause problems in some restoration circumstances because when it is activated it modifies the master boot record. Have a look in MSCONFIG to see the change.
So you could get rid of your secure zone integrity problems by removing it and thus eliminating them entirely.
I definitely need Try&Decide for sandboxing.
What reason for to look for alternative for T&D if
ATI present on the machine any though.
One of my basic rules: Do not double functionalities if
you don't have good reason for doing that.
Why not to use the feature when available?
Then Try&Decide needs definitely ASZ.
It might be true very well that the small recovery manager
introduces significant risk. However, I haven't had any troubles with it before.
How about this as a solution to enable Windows CHKDISK R to be run your secure zone's HDD area.
At a time when T&D is not being used run TI and use its wizard to remove the SZ. Allocate the space to another partition as part of this process.
You can now run CHKDSK on this partition or preferably the whole HDD while you are at it.
Finally run the TI wizard again to re-create the secure zone to restore the T&D function, you could also at this time choose whether or no to re-instate the recovery manager.
Doing the above,which incidentally is a quick and easy process using native tools, will ensure the integrity of the SZ area at that point in time. Repeat at any time you feel it wise to run a CHKDSK on your HDD.
My own method is to do whatever experimentation I choose on my live system,not using T&d at all. If I want to get back to normal it is a simple step to restore the whole disk back to its prior state.
Such approach is too risky for me.
Keep in mind please that restoring as all other things on the earth can fail. Therefore, if I do a real restore I do it only in a need - original data crashed.
You all are right regarding the necessity of regular restore tests. But those I am performing only with a special partition as restore target. Not the image/backup original source.
My own method is to do whatever experimentation I choose on my live system,not using T&d at all. If I want to get back to normal it is a simple step to restore the whole disk back to its prior state.Such approach is too risky for me.
Keep in mind please that restoring as all other things on the earth can fail. Therefore, if I do a real restore I do it only in a need - original data crashed.
You all are right regarding the necessity of regular restore tests. But those I am performing only with a special partition as restore target. Not the image/backup original source.
I never take any risks when restoring my computer. I ensure that this is possible by withdrawing the in use hard drive and replacing it with another before commiting a restore. Done this way a restore holds no terrors at all. A failed restore is just an annoyance, nothing more. Whereas a restore which is done that overwrites a working main hard drive carries an element of risk which I am not prepared to take.
I have developed this way of working to keep my computing as safe as possible. It is the only way I know of establishing that a backup/restore process works in its entirety. To wait until disaster strikes and then to find out that it does not work is far too late in my book.
I do not only aim to know if the disk space foreseen for SZ
is free from bugs. I do also aim to have bad sectors marked as such, so SZ is not accessing them.
If one proceed like you are proposing it here, the final recreation of SZ after chkdsk has done its job leads to some
resize of partition (partition created for purposes of chkdsk check). ATI stops on such resize due to presence of bad sectors in partition being resized. Therefore the only one possible proceeding seems to delete the partition created for chkdsk check, then recreate the SZ from ATI GUI.
Do you think the marks of bad sectors will do not go away
on deleting the partition?