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Retrospect reformats removeable harddrive


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Retrospect 6.1 - Mac G5 OSX 10.4.10 - LaCie External Hard Drive USB 2.0 - Retrospect 5 was not recognizing external drive - Downloaded trial version of 6.1 and that solved recognition problem - Now when running immediate backup Retrospect starts erasing content on the drive (though there is none) and seems to be reformatting Drive - External Drive then becomes unreadable by computer and loses connection - then need to re-initialize (erase and reformat) Drive to be readable by computer again - upon relaunching retrospect and trying to run immediate backup again retrospect still wants to erase - I have verified that I downloaded correct trial version of 6.1 for Mac - what am i missing or doing wrong?

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What type of backup set are you specifying? File backup set or removable media backup set?

You are seeing the expected behavior if you have specified removable media backup set.

 

Both have their advantages and disadvantages. File backup set, backup size is limited to the device size, but it's just a couple of files on the drive. Removable media takes over the drive, but can span multiple volumes (similar model to multiple tapes in a backup set).

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You can't change a backup set type for an already-existing backup set. You will have to create a new backup set.

 

Quote:

I have been specifying Removeable Disc as the Backup Set Type - Why would it reformat the drive to something unreadable by my computer and how can i avoid that?

 


(CallMe)Dave reports that the format for Removable Disk backup sets has a file system on it; my understanding had been that the paradigm for Removable Disk backup sets was exactly like tapes - raw device. He may be right; we have only used backup to tape since 1992, so I don't know and I'm not going to trash one of my server's drives to find out.

 

Anyway, my understanding of Removable Disk as backup set type was that it was a hack to the tape model to allow disk backup sets to grow larger than a single drive, with multiple members (disks) in the set. Tapes are raw devices without file systems, so I had assumed that the same model existed for Removable Disk backup sets. I may be wrong, Dave is usually right - he knows more about Retrospect's internals and formats than I do.

 

Regardless, the raw disk is still "readable" on your computer, even if it doesn't have a file system. Try, in terminal:

od -x /dev/rdisk?

(where ? is the number that gets given to the USB disk).

 

Change to a File backup set, and the Retrospect backup file will coexist on your drive with other files - but it won't be able to grow beyond the size of the volume.

 

Check your preference settings for "Special > Preferences > Media Erasure" and "Special > Preferences > Media Handling", "Use Hard Disks as Removable Disks". Note that the preference for allowing use of hard disks as removable disks even says that the drive will first be erased.

 

Russ

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Thanks Russ - I had already chosen "Special > Preferences > Media Handling", "Use Hard Disks as Removable Disks". I am not concerned with the erasure... only that the software seems to be reformatting the drive to a format that the computer will not recognize - the software loses connection with the drive during the erasure/reformatting process and the software AND computer will then no longer recognize the drive - When i restart i receive a message that the computer cannot read the drive and i am prompted to initailize it

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Quote:

the software loses connection with the drive during the erasure/reformatting process

 


This is a concern. Seems that there is some issue in talking to the drive over an extended time, and might indicate that you won't be able to do backups reliably.

 

Quote:

and the software AND computer will then no longer recognize the drive

 


Actually, from your problem description, the drive is readable but the filesystem on it is not.

This might be a result of the loss of communication causing garbage to be written to the drive.

 

I'd focus on the reason why the software loses connection with the drive during erasure/reformatting. Retrospect does not talk directly to a disk drive; it uses standard syscalls that interface with the drivers, which weren't provided by Retrospect. There's a latent issue here that will eventually cause problems.

 

Russ

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i have reformatted the Drive a few times and it is retrospect that consistently screws up the drive - I can copy files and folders to and from the drive, and the LaCie backup software that came with the drive works fine as well (cannot schedule backups or backup only new or modified files with this... which is why i am still trying to work out the retrospect problem) - Any thoughts?

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And you are trying to create a file backup set with Retrospect?

 

Are you sure there is not a USB issue? Remember, Retrospect is pushing things hard. Sounds to me like a hardware issue with the drive or the USB chips. Retrospect just uses standard syscalls, hard to see how it could cause loss of communication with the drive. Have you tried plugging the drive into a powered hub in case it draws too much power for the USB port to handle, etc.?

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