mannheim Posted January 22, 2003 Report Share Posted January 22, 2003 When restoring an entire volume, I understand from the documentation that Retrospect restores the volume to the "exact state" it was in when the snapshot was made; and I understand that to mean that files created more recently than the snapshot will be deleted during the restore. But the documentation is not specific on this point, at least in the places that I have browsed it. My experience is that Retrospect does _not_ delete newer files, and so does not return the volume to its previous state. Am I missing something? The details: I (bravely) tested the "Restore Entire Volume" feature on my C:\ drive, on which Windows XP is installed. I created a backup set containing all files except cache files, with "Save System State" checked. I changed a few documents, created some new ones, and then launched Retrospect again. I selected "Restore Entire Volume", using the snapshot that I had created earlier, and the option "Replacing Entire Contents". I clicked OK when asked about "replacing entire contents". The restore ran its course, I rebooted, and was prompted to reboot a second time by the "helper" service. After this, my system was apparently healthy (phew ...). But the files that I had created that were later than the snapshot had not been deleted. My C:\ drive was therefore not in the same state as it was at the time of the backup. It would help users if the documentation could be more detailed about what to expect from such a live restore. For example, if Microsoft issues a new service pack, say SP2, for Windows XP and I install it, and if I then decide it's a disaster, will a live restore from an earlier Retrospect snapshot really return my computer to Windows XP SP1 ? Will new files installed with SP2 be deleted in the restore process? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmyJ Posted January 22, 2003 Report Share Posted January 22, 2003 In reply to: and the option "Replacing Entire Contents". I clicked OK when asked about "replacing entire contents". This is where the problem may lie... The second restore option would be to: - Restore entire volume - Replace corresponding files If you used Replace Corresponding... new files will not be deleted as they don't exist in the original backup. Retrospect is only replacing files that match files in the backup and restoring files no longer on the drive - but it won't delete new files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mannheim Posted January 28, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2003 Thank you for the reply. If I understand correctly, your suggested diagnosis doesn't match my situation. I did not choose "Replace corresponding files". In the dialog box titled "Destination Selection", I selected "Restore Entire Volume" from the drop-down list. Just below the drop-down list on this dialog box appear the words "replacing all contents of Drive C". I just tried the whole experiment again, with the same conclusion. Once again, newly created files and folders were not deleted during the restore. The new files and folders were created in the "My Documents" folder of two different user accounts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmyJ Posted January 29, 2003 Report Share Posted January 29, 2003 This sounds like something you may want to speak to Technical Support directly about, and open an incident. Should the end result be a bug in the software itself, your support charges will be refunded. This is a complicated issue and it is not possible through this forum to take a detailed look at what may be failing in your configuration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mannheim Posted January 29, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2003 Well, if you'll put up the $70, I'll contact your tech support department. In the meantime, perhaps you could forward this to them, as a possible bug report (I am assuming that they will let _you_ contact them without a fee). A third, more extensive, test found that files not in the snapshot are being correctly deleted from _some_ folders: for example, the tree below "C:\Program Files" seems to have been restored correctly as far as I can tell. However, files not in the snapshot are not deleted from, at least, the following trees: C:\Documents and Settings\xxxx\My Documents\ (for at least two accounts xxx) C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\ In this more extensive test, I tried restoring my "entire" C drive first from a much older backup (6 weeks old, just after I bought this machine). Then I tried restoring again (over the first restore) from a very recent snapshot. Both times Retrospect told me it would be "replacing all contents of Drive C (C:)". The result was that "My Documents" was a mess: folders that had got moved in the time between the creation of the two snapshots now appeared twice on my drive, once in the old and once in the new (moved-to) location. The start menu was similarly affected. Folders that had been deleted after creation of the first snapshot were correctly restored by the first restore, but were not successfully _deleted_ by the second restore. Note that one of two accounts "xxxx" was not logged in at any time between the creation of the second, recent, snapshot and the completion of the second backup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mannheim Posted January 29, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2003 Oops! The last sentence of my last post read: Quote: ... and the completion of the second backup. I meant, " ... and the completion of the second restore." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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