Disaster Recovery disk - ISO too large for CD

[rjhfandclf]

This issue has been raised numerous times - but unless Retrospect does something about it quickly, it is only going to get a lot worse as software expands.

 

I have tried every way, following Retrospect's advice per KB 5989 etc, to get the ISO file small enough for a CD burn. It is simply impossible without an inordinate amount of file analysing, moving out and then replacing afterwards - which I am not prepared to risk.

 

It is simply ludicrous for Retrospect to promote itself as top-of-the-range backup and recovery software if the media cannot be created with consummate ease. It cannot be very difficult in relative terms to produce an urgent fix to enable DVD restoration support.

 

Is Retrospect going to address this now please - because until it does, I (and I believe numerous others) will have to (continue to) utilise third party disaster recovery programmes, or workarounds - which, I repeat, is ludicrous!

[Mayoff]

In most cases when this fails, it is because the user is not using an official Microsoft (Non-OEM) CD containing the same service pack the user has during the backup.

 

The OEM CD's used by most users contain a lot of extra stuff that just doesn't work well with DR CD creation.

 

We are actively reviewing other ways to build a CD, using a totally different method, but I can't go into much more detail.

 

Rather then get frustrated over the process, you can use the live restore method if a full restore is needed. Live restore takes just about the same amount of time as the DR process.

 

DR Process: A temp system is installed while booted from the DR CD

 

Live Restore Process: You install a temp system while booted from the OS CD.

[rjhfandclf]

I recognise what you are saying, and noted your previous thread reference to the Live Restore process - but as others have said, this all needs to be succinctly automated for simplicity, so that the perceived frustration does not arise in the first place! This, it seems, you are now in the process of putting into place, and I for one will much welcome it.

 

I tried to compile the disk from both an original XP SP1 disk and an (admittedly) streamed SP2 disk. The former seemed to add up to no more than 656 Mb, so I don't know what the problem was - perhaps it was just too close for comfort.

 

I await further news in early anticipation.

[mwexler]

I have just experienced this with a stock XP SP2 CD I just bought off the shelf. It created an ISO at 695 mb, just on the edge of a 700mb CD. I don't recall seeing this issue when I used Retrospect 6.

 

I looked at that KB 5989 (http://kb.dantz.com/display/2n/articleDirect/index.asp?aid=5989&r=8.646792E-02) article, but I didn't see anything I could remove.

 

Did something change in v 7.5 that adds more files?

 

Not being able to make a Disaster Recovery disk is scary; I liked how it would walk me through the restore (at least, on my test). The phrase "Live Restore" is not really documented in the manual or in the Knowledge Base on my searches, so please consider

 

A) adding much more documentation on precisely how a "Live Restore" would work (do you install in a "c:\temp-win\" directory? Does the temp install replace your original windows?)

 

and

 

fix the Disaster Recovery creator, perhaps by using BartPE or other tools to help pare down the windows install to the core group you really need, and/or allowing DVD DR disks.

 

Thanks, Michael

[lima520]

i have a post, jupiter papa addressing the same thing. except i can burn to dvd or cd. problem i was having was restore.rbc was showing "0" when i checked the cd. i solved the problem by partitioning another drive, installing xpsp2 slipstreamed, and before i put my backups on, i did a dr with only the operating system. now i have a dr for all occasions. then i reinstalled my whole pc. lot of work,but worth it.

[martybrown]

Robin - two thoughts / questions:

1) I just upgraded to Retrospect Pro from an older version that came bundled with an external drive. I too ran into the too-large-an-ISO-file- for-a-CD problem. I ended up burning the ISO to a DVD instead. Why wouldn't this work?

2) My new Dell will look for a USB flash drive upon boot (I know because I had to change the boot sequence so that I could leave a flash drive permanently installed for backup reasons.) Could I copy the ISO image to a flash drive and achieve the same effect as with a CD?

[Mayoff]

DVD images are not supported. Only CD-ROM is supported

[Don_Evans]

I've had a similar problem trying to create a recovery CD after slipstreaming SP3 into preinstalled XP SP2 files on an OEM PC. I removed non required files until Retrospect 7.6 Prof. allowed me to make the image iso. This had a zero length restore.rbc file and the resulting CD wouldn't work. Turns out that Retrospect doesn't populate restore.rbc if the iso size is over the CD limit; it writes a zero length restore.rbc file - but doesn't tell you it has done so. If you knock off a load of files from the iso (as an experiment), the restore file populates. I finally succeeded by ticking the 'compress catalog files' option (70% reduction). Also, I believe that restore.rbc is a renamed catalog file. So, you could probably create the iso with a zero length restore.rbc and then add your catalog file (renamed restore.rbc) later - providing you can still burn the CD.

[Mayoff]

Just upgrade to 7.7. These issues do not exist with the new version and the universal bootable CD image it includes.