It used to work - MacBook Pro DVD

[steve32stevens]

I have seen several threads where Retrospect would not initally (or ever) recognize a DVD drive in a MacBook Pro. My problem is a little different. I have been using version 6.1 since 2/20/2007 and it recognized my DVD drive fine until 9/9/2007. On that date Retrospect would no longer recognize my DVD drive. I have used Retrospect since 2002 and have found it to be a very good backup and recovery application. I find it difficult to believe that Retrospect would suddenly stop recognizing the drive on its own. My guess is that some action I have taken has cause the incompatibility. So, I did some searching of my memory of events and of the /Library/Preference/Retrospect directory on my hard drive to try to find any correlations.

 

From what I can pull together, on 9/9/2007 I downloaded and ran the Apple SuperDrive Update 2.1 made available through Software Updates. This did not seem to negatively affect my DVD drive as some have experienced. I can use Toast and Apple's own Burn Disc routine with no problems. However, it appears that after running that update Retrospect cannot recognize my DVD drive any longer. I cannot state for a fact that this is the reason. It is just the only action I have taken that I can remember that happened on this date. Checking the Last Opened date on the SuperDrive Update shows 9/9/2007. Has anyone experienced any thing similar? Any ideas or suggestions?

 

I am running version 6.1.126 with the Driver Update that came out 9/27/2007. I have made a copy of the /Library/Preference/Retrospect directory for save keeping. I have Uninstalled Retrospect and reinstalled it. I have then installed the various Retrospect Driver Updates starting with the oldest and working my way up to the latest with no positive results.

 

I ran a successful backup on 8/18/2007 - snipped from the Operations Log:

8/18/2007 5:11:00 PM: Execution completed successfully.

Total performance: 184.8 MB/minute

Total duration: 00:24:20 (00:15:05 idle/loading/preparing)

Quit at 8/18/2007 5:11 PM

 

When running Retrospect the Storage Device dialog box shows:

Panasonic DVD+RW, ATAIP-A:0:0

 

The Device Status dialog box shows:

ID: ATAPI,A:0:0

Vender: MATSHITA

Product: DVD-R UJ-857 (which I think is supported from looking at the supported database)

Version: HAE4

Driver: Panasonic DVD+RW (5.12)

 

OSX 10.4.10

 

Hardware Overview

Model Name: MacBook Pro 15"

Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,1

Processor Name: Intel Core Duo

Processor Speed: 2.16 GHz

Number Of Processors: 1

Total Number Of Cores: 2

L2 Cache (per processor): 2 MB

Memory: 2 GB

Bus Speed: 667 MHz

Boot ROM Version: MBP11.0055.B08

 

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Sincerely,

Steve

[rhwalker]

Steve,

 

My complements on such thorough analysis and fact-gathering for your post. It's rare.

 

Quote:

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From what I can pull together, on 9/9/2007 I downloaded and ran the Apple SuperDrive Update 2.1 made available through Software Updates. This did not seem to negatively affect my DVD drive as some have experienced. I can use Toast and Apple's own Burn Disc routine with no problems. However, it appears that after running that update Retrospect cannot recognize my DVD drive any longer.

 

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Sure looks suspicious about the SuperDrive update. You are aware, aren't you, that Toast and Apple's Burn Disk / Disk Utility use a different set of commands than Retrospect does to burn DVDs and CDs, aren't you? The fact that Toast and Apple's software still works is only indicative that the SuperDrive still spins and that its lasers and read/write electronics are working, not that its firmware still supports the commands that Retrospect needs. Retrospect uses a different set of commands and burn technology so that DVDs/CDs can be appended after the first burn.

 

You indicate that you've got a DVD-R UJ-857. You might look through the Retrospect RDU version history:

RDU version history

and try regressing to an earlier version that might work (all RDU versions are available through links in the RDU version history file). Some people have been reporting issues with the later RDUs this year (perhaps a software QC/QA issue at EMC) for RDU later than about RDU 6.1.9.x.

 

One other possibility is that you might have tried to do a "custom configuration" for your drive, and a custom configuration file (.rdi file in your /Library/Retrospect/Preferences folder) might be overriding settings in the RDU. If you've got one, you might try dragging the .rdi file to the desktop (with Retrospect quit) and retry the exercise to see if the parameters in one of the RDU (try regression with a few) works.

 

Looks like you are doing everything else right.

 

Russ

[steve32stevens]

Hi, Russ,

 

Thanks for the quick response. Yes, I was aware the Retrospect uses different commands to burn to CD and DVD. That is one of the reasons I like it. It spans multiple CD/DVDs and keeps them open for further writing if the media isn't full. I don't know if that feature is related to the commands it uses, but Retrospect was the only backup application I found that handle this.

 

I checked my /Library/Preferences/Retrospect directory and there were 5 RDI files there from where I had updated drivers over the years (I use to use Retrospect on an iBook). I moved all of them to a safe folder and started installing Driver Updates one at a time starting with none and just a Retrospect 6.1 unistall/reinstall, then updating Drivers sequentially. Took a lot of reboots. But, no luck. I have also tried a uninstall/reinstall selecting to delete the Preferences. Then I tried copying back into /Library/Preferences/Retrospect the RDI files starting with the oldest and working forward. Again, no success.

 

I have also tried the Custom Configuration multiple times with a variety of CD and DVD types. But that always failed resulting in a prompt to send a log file to Retrospect, which I have done.

 

Sounds like I may just have to resort to an external DVD...

 

Thanks for you interest and suggestions.

 

Sincerely,

Steve

[rhwalker]

Looks like you have covered all of the avenues to explore.

 

You might also try to see if you could get an earlier firmware update for the SuperDrive and regress that firmware to a version that works.

[rhwalker]

Quote:

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Yes, I was aware the Retrospect uses different commands to burn to CD and DVD. ... It spans multiple CD/DVDs and keeps them open for further writing if the media isn't full. I don't know if that feature is related to the commands it uses

 

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Yep, you've got it pegged exactly. See:

Retrospect commands for CD/DVD