JohnA Posted January 26, 2003 Report Share Posted January 26, 2003 Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Help! I brought a new PC with Hitachi-LGE DVDRAM GMA4020B combo drive. I am attempting to backup to the DVD-RAM 4.7 Gb media. After three days, I still cannot get a good backup/restore. If I disable DirectCD, erase my media and format them from the standard Explorer menu, backups appear to take much longer with speeds dropping into the 10-20Mb/min range. Also, the DVD-RAM drive appears to be louder with rhythmic noises (not too loud but audible). After a while, I get numerous random bad blocks until finally I am notified that data has been lost. If I enable Direct CD, erase my media and format it from there, then my drive runs along at speeds 60-80Mb/min on average, sounds are gone, and I get no bad block notifications. However, I'm only good until the first disk completes... the second disk continues to backup seemingly ok, but only the first disk verifies! The second almost imediately places lots of error messages such as: "Map Error: unknown Windows error 23 - TFile::Read: ReadFile faled, D:\Retrospect\Backup Set A\2-Backup Set A\BG000009.rdb,winerr23, error -1001. followed by trouble reading: (trouble communicating) -102 messages. Please help... I really do not want to go back to another backup program but I have to have a backup of my system! Thanks, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted January 26, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2003 Hi, For whatever it's worth, Stomp's Backup (Veritas) had no problem backing up my system to the DVD media and verifying it... indeed, it also could not use media formatted by DirectCD either, but putting in an erased disc, it formatted it in seconds, and resulted in great performance without any strange sounds coming out of the DVD-RAM device or bad block errors. This was on exactly the same media too as I had attempted to perform on Dantz Retrospect's backup. I also spanned media onto a second volume with no problem at all. Sincerely, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted January 26, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2003 Hi, My previous post should be read as showing that the hardware was performing as expected - I'm not trying to show one program better than another - indeed, I'd rather stick with Retrospect if it will work with my drive. Sincerely, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted January 29, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2003 Dear Retrospect users, Well, it's been fun - I have one program that works flawlessly and another that won't work but whose vendor tells me I must pay over half the price of the program to tell me how to get it to work. I'll leave it up to the reader to figure out which way I am going to go. Before I depart, one word to Retrospect users with DVD-RAM drives: I've found out that ejecting the cartridge from within Retrospect causes problems especially the problem of Retrospect continuously trying to mount the old volume, not recognizing the new. Configuring Retrospect not to perform an eject, and always either ejecting from Windows or just using the eject button on the DVD-RAM drive works much better and eliminated this "ghost" forever in all my testing. Best wishes to the Dantz user community. If Dantz management is listening, IMHO you have a real problem. Take care, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmyJ Posted January 30, 2003 Report Share Posted January 30, 2003 Quote: - I am attempting to backup to the DVD-RAM 4.7 Gb media. - If I enable Direct CD, erase my media and format it from there, then my drive runs along at speeds 60-80Mb/min on average, sounds are gone, and I get no bad block notifications. If you are using DVD-RAM media, how are you using Direct CD to format? This is a combo drive - are you sure you're not using DVD-R/-RW media? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted January 31, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2003 Hi Amy, You write: >> If you are using DVD-RAM media, how are you using Direct CD to format? This is a combo drive - are you sure you're not using DVD-R/-RW media? << Thanks for your reply. I am most definitely using DVD-RAM media. I have tried both Imation single sided 4.7 Gb DVD-RAM (came with the drive without a part number, unfortunately, but it is clearly labeled in numerous places both on the case and on the media itself) and a Maxell double sided 9.4Gb DVD-RAM (there are no double sided DVD-R/-RW media that I'm aware of). I'm not sure "how" I'm using Direct CD to format except it works just fine. Maybe the combo drive makes it look like a DVD-R/-RW to Direct CD? I'm all new to this... I wish I knew more so I could post the answer here, but I don't! Take care, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted January 31, 2003 Report Share Posted January 31, 2003 When using a DVD-RAM disk with Retrospect, you would not normally use Direct CD to format the disk. You should be using UDF or NTFS format. From our Knowledgebase: How to format removables depends upon which operating system you are using. Knowledgebase suggestions for formatting DVD-RAM From a different KB record: If you are using Windows, format your removable cartridges per your drive vendor's recommendation, either using a utility they provide, or using the Windows Explorer. Before launching Retrospect, insert each piece of media, and format it. If you are already in Retrospect, you may format removable media that already shows up in the Explorer using the Format toolbar button in Configure>Devices. And from another knowledgebase record: http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=kbase&ACTION=KBASE&id=27106 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted January 31, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2003 Hi, You write: >> When using a DVD-RAM disk with Retrospect, you would not normally use Direct CD to format the disk. You should be using UDF or NTFS format. << Thanks for your post... Yes, I tried it both ways (desparate people do desparate things). With DirectCD, the performance was much improved and errors went away. Formatting using the builtin Windows XP format command (FAT32 over UDF) resulted in louder drive, slower drive (10M/minute transfers) and finally media errors viewable from the system event viewer. Is there another way? How does one go about using NTFS on DVD-RAM media? I haven't figured out how to do this. Thanks again.... Take care, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted February 6, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2003 Hi, Problem has been solved! Until today, I have never been able to get a complete backup with verification on my system. However, today, when I removed DirectCD from my system, it worked just fine! Apparently, it is not enough to just use a DVD-RAM media not formatted by DirectCD, DirectCD itself must be removed or it will interfere somehow. To remove DirectCD, I just went to Add/Remove Programs and did a "Change" installation of Easy CD Creator 5 Basic. I then configured DirectCD as disabled and it was removed. I suggest anyone having problems burning to DVD-RAM try this out before doing anything else. Take care, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmyJ Posted February 6, 2003 Report Share Posted February 6, 2003 Thanks for the update, John! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted February 7, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2003 Hi, No problem... one more note - the "eject cartridge within Dantz problem" I reported here seems to have been tied with DirectCD. Without DirectCD, I can eject safely from within Retrospect and not have any problems. Take care, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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