1. I really do not understand your problem with the drive letter C:\
I have used many different BOOT-CD's for many purposes, including sundry Partition managers and also Acronis 10 and Acronis 11.
None of these have EVER shown me any drive letters, they do not know such things.
Drive letters are something special to Windows,
and can be reassigned within Windows.
So if Windows is not running, i.e. Boot-CD is in total charge, drive letters can only be guessed at.
I learned a long time ago to change the label of every partition to show me the drive letter I wanted it to be, and also its purpose.
2. There is a special GOTCHA with Acronis Secure Zone.
It is a hidden partition which is possible to boot into when otherwise the BIOS would decide there is no CD to use and it is time to run Windows.
Acronis patches the MBR to permit this bypass of a full Windows start-up.
If that Acronis Secure Zone is damaged or destroyed, or discarded by restoring to factory defaults, then if you restore an Acronis image that includes the MBR as it was, when you complete restoration and reboot the first thing to happen after BIOS is the MBR wants to see the Acronis Secure Zone.
It happened to me and I had to use another Boot-CD to fix my MBR before I could run Windows again.
I was using a Partition Manager under Windows to shift a data partition (i.e. no system files were at risk).
Something happened and all seven partitions vanished.
Even the Partition manager could not see them until I launched its Recovery Wizard.
That saw about 24 different partition boundaries due to many changes to the size of this partition and the replacement of that etc. So many possibilities for overlapping partitions.
PANIC
It was a great help to see my labels with the drive letter clues.
I think I need to add a further clue of the date whenever I change its boundaries.
I retrieved the six I needed.
The other partition was the Acronis Secure Zone which I have never needed,
and the Partition Manager had always said it was an unknown format at the best of times because of how Acronis had hidden and protected it.
I decided that I had no need for the Acronis Secure Zone,
and I certainly was not going to risk losing again the six which had caused me such panic,
so I got out of there as fast as possible.
I had the 6 partitions, but no Windows, no Internet, and no Google to tell me how to fix things.
More panic until I worked out for myself that the MBR needed fixing.
I remembered there was something called fixmbr, but had no idea how to use it.
Google just is not around when you need it most ! !
All I had were my BOOT-CD's.
Relief, Partition manager CD had a rebuild MBR option.
Windows at last ! !
I now ensure the Internet is disconnected and all Comodo Security is disabled before using a partition manager under Windows to do anything more advanced than changing a drive letter,
and feel safest from any external disturbance if I use the Partition Manager BOOT-CD.
You live and learn.
Alan
