Incremental Backup Failure

[martinsan]

During an incremental backup of my c:\ drive to CD-R, I received a hardware error when using disk member #15.

 

 

 

I'm not sure, but, I am assuming that the entire backup set is bad as disk #15 is now unreadable and has several other incremental backups on it.

 

 

 

Question: Am I right in assuming the entire backup set is bad and that I would have to backup the entire c:\ drive to a new backup set, or, is there some way to reset the old backup set using disks #1 thru #14?

 

 

 

I'll propose an answer and ask if it will work?

 

 

 

Let us say I perform a "new" complete backup of the c:\ drive to 15 CD-Rs. Then, per page 167 of the manual, I set Preferences>Media Request Preferences to "Automatic Skip to Blank Media". During my first incremental backup I am assuming that Retrospect will ask for CD-R #16. (In this manner all incremental backups will start and be on the new CD-R). Now let us assume I successfully perform several incremental backups to CD-R #16.

 

 

 

Now let us say my next incremental backup fails and I receive another hardware error when using CD-R #16. The CD-R becomes unreadable.

 

 

 

Will the following allow me to recover CD-Rs #1 thru #15? Per page 198 of the manual, I could re-create the CD/DVD catalog and tell Retrospect that there are NO more disk members after reading CD-R #15.

 

 

 

Question: Will everything be reset to the contents on CD-Rs #1 thru #15? AND Will my next incremental backup include all files that were changed since the final file on CD-R #15?

 

 

 

Question: Could I then start the incremental backup process with a "new" CD-R #16 and NOT lose any data?

 

 

 

Question: Or is there an easier method to prevent an incremental backup from ruining an entire backup set? (Backup to a file? The manual is very sketchy here. Any hints would be appreciated. Are they .iso files and have to put each on a separate CD-R?)

[AmyJ]

If a disc is bad in a backup set, you can mark a single member as "missing" through Configure > Backup Sets > Properties > Members. This tells Retrospect that the member is no longer available. Retrospect can continue backing up to this set. Any data that was on the bad disc, that is still on the source drive, will be backed up in subsequent backups.

 

 

 

If discs 16 and 17 (as per your example) go bad, there is no reason to recatalog discs 1-15. Mark them as missing and Retrospect will move on to disk 18. Retrospect will backup any data that is not backed up to discs 1-15. You can certainly recatalog discs 1-15. In this case, your next backup would start with disc 16.