abradaxis Posted December 15, 2006 Report Share Posted December 15, 2006 This topic is listed as a hot thread, but its slowly petering out. Except, in studying it in detail, it seems there are still an awful lot of uners who never got a straight answer. So I'd like to start another thread about this same topic and let anyone interested join it. Hopefully, it will provide some additional information, and not contention between the writers. I've been using Retrospect for many years now, on a variety of machines, and always with very good results. At times you have to get past the condecension of some of the more experienced users, and of those that disagree with you, but generally you can get the problem sorted out. Not so the case with user's finding their ISO Files too large to write to the requested Bootable CD for disaster recovery. My problem system is a straightforward Dell desktop. I've been setting it up for my wife, so it's only a week old. In my first attempt at Backup and Disaster recovery, Retrospect informed me that the bootable file was too large to write to a CD, ergo no disaster recovery. I followed each of the recommendations of Dantz, but the only I386 folder I have is installed on my computer. Dants says its too long, or there are extraneous files in it. But it is only one week old, and we have not added anything but basic stuff. SO, my quandry is, how do I get a CD-based disaster/recovery disk from this program; certainly a step that Should be made available to me without my becoming a windows guru to figured out what files to leave in and which ones to take out. I hope someone can pull me out of this mess I'm in. Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemuel3 Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 Same problem. Info here indicates the following data is written in the iso image: http://kb.dantz.com/al/12/1/5989.html 1) The Retrospect Application Folder (C:\Program Files\Dantz\Retrospect) 2) The Retrospect Config Folder (C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Retrospect) 3) The Windows Drivers Folder (C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers) 4) The I386 Folder (This should be copied from the Windows Installation CD) 5) The Catalog file for the Backup Set that is locked to the Disaster Recovery. The sizes on my disk of these items are 36, 52, 32, 422 and 42 MB, respectively. This sums to 584 MB. But the iso image is 744 MB, which doesn't fit on a CD-ROM. So where's the other 160 MB coming from? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemuel3 Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 Getting closer to a solution. I installed a program which allows viewing the contents of an iso file in Explorer. The image file produced by DR contains two directories, "Drivers" and "I386" as well as a number of files in the root directory. ALL the files in the Drivers directory are duplicated in the root directory! And it appears that they all are also written to the I386 directory, I only checked 20 or so. This explains why adding hardware to my system made the iso image file grow so quickly, all the drivers are written there three times. I can't believe this is working properly. I wonder which copy of the driver files is used in the restore process? /, Drivers or I386? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abradaxis Posted February 16, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 16, 2009 Did you ever get a resoltion to your issue of the size of the ISO file preventing the creation of a DR CD. I'm trying to deal with this on my newest machine and still don't have a satisfactory solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted February 17, 2009 Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 What is the exact operating system? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abradaxis Posted February 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 Thank you for your prompt response. I'm running XP Professional, SP3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted February 17, 2009 Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 You must use a Microsoft original XP SP3 CD and not an OEM disk from your computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abradaxis Posted February 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2009 I want to thank you for your prompt response. I had to go through this process once before (acquiring an original XP SP1) CD from Microsoft, and it is a real hassle. If you find the right department, you have to answer a bevy of questons as to what you want, and why you want it. Then they sell you an incorrect CD (in my case just the SP2 updates), and you have to start the process all over again, and, naturally, pay another fee. So, is there no other solution except the one you gave, which is really like scratching your ear with your elbow. Perhaps one of the other Retropsect products, or a list of files in my Windows/System32 directory that can obviously be eliminated, or anything else that offers a simple solution to what was initially an easy and minimally expensive solution to the owner of one desktop and one laptop. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeV99 Posted March 3, 2009 Report Share Posted March 3, 2009 You must use a Microsoft original XP SP3 CD and not an OEM disk from your computer. I have the exact same problem. How can one create a SP3 CD from the OEM disk? I did not have this problem with version 6. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abradaxis Posted March 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2009 I asked the same question on the Microsoft User Group Web site and received a slew of answers. The most common method seems to be one called "slipstreaming," which, if you have your Masters Degree in computing, is a simple multi-stage process which I found dizzying just reading. I'm sorry to say that there is no "push-button" solution from Dantz, and now that we are at XP SP3, it looks like many more people are experiencing the problem. My solution was to by a program called Acronis True Image Home 2000 (Egghead for $39.99, free shipping and a $20. rebate). I didn't test it myself as yet, but it has been a proven success with many XP users in the same situation. I'm sorry to be going in the direction of giving up Retrospect, but the company's inability to provide a reasonable solution to disaster recovery indicates to me that they do not wish to support the home or home office user. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeV99 Posted March 3, 2009 Report Share Posted March 3, 2009 I just did a slipstream to merge sp3 into my oem sp2 i386 folder to create a sp3 i386 folder. I then ran diaster recovery and got the same error. So much for using a sp3 i386 folder. I did not have this problem with version 6. Given the lack of assistance, it is a bit frustrating. I will take a look at Acronis True Image Home 2000. Thanks. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeV99 Posted March 3, 2009 Report Share Posted March 3, 2009 You must use a Microsoft original XP SP3 CD and not an OEM disk from your computer. I built a sp3 i386 folder using slipstream and had the same error message. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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