SteveS801 Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Over 10 years ago (when Retro was fresh), I made some backups of my computers. I still have the CDs with the backups and I would like to restore them. I installed Retrospect 9, and I had thought it was not recognizing the disc. This was to be a post about how to get Retro to restore from backups made with older versions, it is now a post about how to get Retro to become aware that the hardware even exists. I am using an HP G7 laptop with DVD drive. The drive appears to be an HP DVDRAM GT80N on a SATA connection. When Googling the model number, it may be manufactured by LG (they have a drive with the same model number, description and features) instead of or for HP. I also have a WD Passport connected via USB3, but Retrospect does not even support any WD drives at all. Not one. I don't know if there is anything wrong with the discs, probably because they are in a RAW format, so Windows knows nothing about them. They have 0 used space and 0 usable space. Even if Retro recognized my WD, I could not transfer anything to the drive and I cannot transfer anything to my Hitachi internal drive which came from HP. Any help would be appreciated greatly, thanks. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scillonian Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Hi A list of all the storage devices officially supported by Retrospect can be found at: http://www.retrospect.com/en/devices Other drives may work to a lesser of greater extent. Even if you have a compatible drive there is a fair chance that after ten years the disks may not work unless you used archival grade CDs. The WD Passport drive should be usable in Retrospect as whatever drive letter is assigned to it by Windows when you connect it. A USB drive is seen by Retrospect as just another storage volume the same as the internal drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveS801 Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Hi A list of all the storage devices officially supported by Retrospect can be found at: http://www.retrospect.com/en/devices Other drives may work to a lesser of greater extent. Even if you have a compatible drive there is a fair chance that after ten years the disks may not work unless you used archival grade CDs. The WD Passport drive should be usable in Retrospect as whatever drive letter is assigned to it by Windows when you connect it. A USB drive is seen by Retrospect as just another storage volume the same as the internal drive. Thanks, Scillonian for the response. I know where the list of supported drives is, I mentioned that neither my DVD drive nor my WD is on that list. I suppose I may not have mentioned that Retro does not recognize either drive, which may be why you think that, "Other drives may work to a lesser of greater extent." I don't know whether the CDs are good or not and I can't make that determination unless I get the software to read the discs and first, I need the software to recognize the drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scillonian Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 With respect to the DVD if Retrospect does not see it now I doubt it will in the future so if you want to see if the disks are readable you will need to find a drive that will work with Retrospect. In general the older the drive is the more chance there is it will work with Retrospect. As you are using a laptop this will not be easy. If you can have access to a desktop system that will increase your chances. (With CD and DVD being a waning backup medium I would rate the chances of support for you specific drive ever being added to Retrospect as virtually zero.) Does Windows recognise you WD Passport USB hard drive and assign a drive letter to it? Can you access the drive from Windows Explorer and manipulate the files on it? (Note: Hard drives are not listed in the Devices dialog in Retrospect.) Which specific version of Retrospect 9 are you using? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveS801 Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 With respect to the DVD if Retrospect does not see it now I doubt it will in the future so if you want to see if the disks are readable you will need to find a drive that will work with Retrospect. In general the older the drive is the more chance there is it will work with Retrospect. As you are using a laptop this will not be easy. If you can have access to a desktop system that will increase your chances. (With CD and DVD being a waning backup medium I would rate the chances of support for you specific drive ever being added to Retrospect as virtually zero.) Does Windows recognise you WD Passport USB hard drive and assign a drive letter to it? Can you access the drive from Windows Explorer and manipulate the files on it? (Note: Hard drives are not listed in the Devices dialog in Retrospect.) Which specific version of Retrospect 9 are you using? Yes, the drive is fully accessible. Ver 9.0.0 (189). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scillonian Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 If the drive is fully accessible in Windows then in Retrospect if you select 'Configure > Volumes' in the left side panel this should open the 'Volumes Database' dialog. Under 'My Computer' the volume(s) on your WD Passport should be listed along with the volume(s) on the internal hard drive. By specific version of Retrospect I meant Desktop, Single Server, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveS801 Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 If the drive is fully accessible in Windows then in Retrospect if you select 'Configure > Volumes' in the left side panel this should open the 'Volumes Database' dialog. Under 'My Computer' the volume(s) on your WD Passport should be listed along with the volume(s) on the internal hard drive. By specific version of Retrospect I meant Desktop, Single Server, etc. Ok, I see it. I must have been looking under Devices instead, now that I follow your directions. This solves the issue of maybe backing up from the Passport, but it still does not help me get the backups to the Passport. Any idea on how I might work with these discs from this point? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scillonian Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Are these backup sets that are currently on you internal drive that you would prefer to have on your USB drive? If it is a new disk backup set you are creating then the USB drive can be specified during creation by clicking 'Select...' on the page where you specify the backup set name and opening 'My Computer' to show the available drives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveS801 Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Are these backup sets that are currently on you internal drive that you would prefer to have on your USB drive? If it is a new disk backup set you are creating then the USB drive can be specified during creation by clicking 'Select...' on the page where you specify the backup set name and opening 'My Computer' to show the available drives. Have you read my original post? Was it in any way confusing to you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scillonian Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Yes I read your original post but you never said explicitly you were wanting to transfer the backup sets from the CDs to the WD Passport. When you go to 'Configure > Devices' what is listed on the 'Status' and 'Environment' tabs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveS801 Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 (edited) Even if Retro recognized my WD, I could not transfer anything to the drive and I cannot transfer anything to my Hitachi internal drive which came from HP. Edited March 19, 2014 by SteveS801 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveS801 Posted March 21, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2014 Haven't heard from you in a few days. Did you get notice of my response? I quoted my original post where I did say what you said I did not. I uploaded a screenshot containing both windows you requested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scillonian Posted March 23, 2014 Report Share Posted March 23, 2014 I did get the notification of your post but it only contained the quote at that time. On the 'Environment' tab the device at 1:0:0 could be your DVD drive but it is it is not reporting, or being allowed to report, any information that Retrospect can understand. If your laptop's BIOS support this, changing the operating mode of the SATA controller in the laptop's BIOS, from AHCI to ATA or vise ATA to AHCI, may allow the DVD drive to be seen correctly by Retrospect. This has worked for some when upgading from Windows XP to Windows 7 when previously working drives disappeared. Other things that can hijack the drive are CD/DVD creation suites like Nero. Other options would be try a USB CD/DVD drive with your laptop or get access to desktop where you can temporarily install Retrospect to recover the data from the optical media. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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