Cleanup Utility and extended capacity

Bruno, it is very unlikely that you would have any extended disk software installed unless you really do have a much older system which did not support larger capacity disk drives as described in the following KB document:  

48596: Acronis True Image 2015: Extended Capacity Is Not Supported - this states:

Extended Capacity was a feature to assist Windows XP users in managing disks over 3TB in size. As Microsoft ended support for Windows XP earlier in 2014, Acronis has also removed support for this specific feature in Acronis True Image 2015. Also, most users use newer OSs that have this support, thus making it redundant. Acronis strives to provide the widest range of operating system support possible, and does support Windows XP (Service Pack 3) and later operating systems for our core product functionality, however we cannot provide support for all features when an operating system is discontinued.

Steve, that is what I read. And I could not find anything but I was just wondering why the Cleanup Utility asked that question if there was nothing to be removed, especially since it was not documented. Hence, wondering if maybe something got left behind.

Bruno, the cleanup tool is intended for use in cleaning multiple different versions of ATIH from 2010 to 2017, hence the question would be relevant if used on any earlier version from 2010 to 2014.

Steve, I did use it to remove ATI 2014. What I am trying to understand is whether the question was asked because there was actually something found to remove, or was it asked just because it was version 2014 regardless of whether there was anything in the system that should have been removed.

Bruno, the question is asked of anyone who runs the cleanup tool regardless of whether extended capacity was included in the version you are cleaning up or not - I don't believe that the tool knows what may be installed or not, as you will see the same question on a system where Acronis has never been installed too.

Thanks, Steve. That's what I was looking for.

If I might add a caution here, Steve:  If one is backing up to a Acronis Secure Zone on a large (6TB) hard drive, use of extended capacity manager is necessary, as the ASZ cannot be located on a GPT drive. 

So, there is a need, beyond the OS's capabilities, for MBR drives on large capacity hard drives.

Best regards,

DaveM

DaveM, the extended capacity manager was withdrawn from all Acronis products from ATI 2015 onwards in line with the end of support for Windows XP by Microsoft.

ASZ is a pure FAT32 partition variation with all the limitations that FAT32 brings along and is not really 'secure' in the real sense needed in a world of ransomware, encryption etc.

If you are using extended capacity support from an older version of ATI, i.e. 2014 or earlier then you are in a completely unsupported scenario, especially if you have Windows 10.

Personally I gave up using ASZ some years ago and would not consider going back to using it when I can use any size of NTFS drive for storing my backups, using encryption as needed for security regardless of needing to keep to Legacy / MBR partitions etc.

Have you also considered how you would recover your backups stored in your 6TB ASZ drive from the Acronis Rescue media which has no extended capacity support?

Thanks, Steve, for the quick reply.  You make some good points, but at the expense of others.  For example, you mention the threat of ransomware.   I would think that the ASZ would be less vulnerable than either NTFS or FAT32 filesystems, as it is less likely that the ransomware software would have a routine for encrypting the ASZ.  But that's just my guess.

As for backups, I use two levels of backup; the daily incremental backup to the ASZ using ATI-2013 and a manual process using Beyond Compare to backup my daily work to a NAS.  Seems to do the job, most especially, giving me the ability to retrieve from the ASZ selected versions of, for example, an Excel workbook, whose VBA code in the current version is now misbehaving.

This then brings me to your point about ATI-2013 being "unsupported".  Given that the first tier of support from all software companies, that I've called expecting support, comes in the most painful form, starting with "Have you reinstalled Windows?  Give that a try", I no longer expect help from the software publishers in solving real-world problems.  Occasionally, I'm surprised with success, but the ledger sheet is strongly on the debit side.

To that point, I recently upgraded a 4TB drive on which the Extended Capacity Manager had been put to good use, giving me a 2TB ASZ drive and a 1.6TB "temp" drive (lightening the load on my SSDs).  Now with the 6TB installed, I had hoped to add another 2TB "spare" drive, but the Extended Capacity Manager balked at adding a second extended drive (the last 1.6TB) with an error 0x1800009.  Realizing that the ECM is no longer supported by Acronis, I searched this knowledge base and found only one hit on this error.... and that hit had no suggested solutions... in fact had no replies at all.

So, as is usual with software publishers, I am on my own to find a solution, which brings me full-circle to your suggestion to abandon the ASZ, which may come to past when I find a need for the last 1.6TB of the 6TB drive.  Just wish I had known that the ECM would balk at creating two extended drives before I bought the 6TB.

Thanks for you help, however.

Best regards,

DaveM