Multiple Catalog files

[EngineMan]

Hi,

 

 

 

I've been using Retrospect Express for a couple of years now and haven´t encountered any real problems but as I've just come across these forums I thought I'd ask a few questions.

 

 

 

1. I often hear references to 'new Drivers available for Retrospect and Retrospect Express' on Mac web sites but I can't seem to find any driver on my system. I'm using Retrospect Express 4.3 Sony Edition. Can someone tell me the name of this file and where it is stored? I know that my version of Retrospect needs Toast to be installed. Could this explain why I can't seem to find any Retrospect drivers?

 

 

 

2. I have a stable system (OS 9.0.4) in the sense that I don't add new apps all that often. I'm a lazy troubleshooter and when faced with strange errors I usually just replace my System Folder with another one that I know to be in good working order. This way I'm back to normal in a restart. Nice and simple.

 

 

 

However I noticed from the start that if I did a search for the 'System Folder' from a restore search dialog box, it would return one System Folder but with multiple copies of several files that had been backed up in each backup session (for example it would have a 'system' file for every backup I'd ever done because the system gets modified every day) when all I wanted was my System Folder as it was at a certain time in the past. (Remember, I'm lazy. I didn't want to manually fish through the contents of the system folder deselecting all those duplicate items)

 

 

 

To workaround this problem what I do is make a copy of the Snapshot at every backup and put it into a folder where I store all my Snapshot catalogs. For example 'Backup Set D 22 Jan 2001' . Then, when I want to restore from a Snapshot I just hit the 'more' button, choose a Snapshot from the copies I have, select the System Folder and Restore it to a convenient place on my hard drive.

 

 

 

My question is: Is this the best way to achieve what I'm trying to do? Have I missed something in the manual? Am I compromising the integrity of my backups?

 

 

 

I ask this because I've just used this technique to 'reclaim' my System Folder from the 17 Jan 2002. After a successful restore I went back to the selection process (via the 'restore' button) and tried to change the default snapshot back to that of my latest backup (23 March 2002) but Retrospect gave me an error message saying that 'This catalog appears to already be in use or exist' (or words to that effect) and suggesting that I tell Retrospect to 'forget' one or the other.

 

 

 

This surprised me a little because every time I make a duplicate of a Catalog file I change it's name (I add a date) and Retrospect appeared to 'know' what the file was even though the one I was attempting to select had a different name.

 

 

 

To be able to select the latest catalog I had to follow the same procedure but via the 'Backup' button.

 

 

 

3. Just curiosity. As we all know, Retrospect Snapshots represent the source volume as it was at the time of the last backup, and via the 'browsers' it's easy to navegate to any files you might want to restore and select them. However. if you want to find a file that you erased a long time ago (and thus is not in the latest snapshot) then you could use the search criteria options to try and locate the file you want. But the problem here is that you can't do it visually (as you can via a snapshot) so you need a name or other criteria to find it.

 

 

 

If you just can't remember the name of the file (but would remember it if you saw it by name or through it's location) then you can manually 'browse' each and every 'member' of a Backup Set just as you would the snapshot from your last Backup to get to that file (this option is pretty well hidden in Retrospect (but it's saved my bacon many a time).

 

 

 

The problem is that when you reach the file you find yourself at a dead end. You're in a browser, you can even mark the file but you can't do much with it (apart from get info). To be able to restore that file you have to note down it's name and go back to the search criteria dialog box, do the search and fish it out that way. It would be much easier if Dantz had simply added an option to restore the marked files (either via a menu item or something in the Browser window).

 

 

 

My question is: Will Retrospect Express 5.0 offer this feature. Will there be a Retrospect Express 5?

 

 

 

Sorry this has been long and hope I've explained myself clearly. By the way I understand the term 'forget' in Retro speak. It wasn't the content of the message that spooked me it was the presence of it. And yes I realize I'm using a fair amount of disk space to hold on to my catalogs.

 

 

 

Regards.

[Mayoff]

Retrospect Express 5.0 adds the "add snapshot" feature so you can restore the entire hard disk from any given backup date. It makes restores of older files much easier then doing a Restore>Search.