Restoring a bootable drive

[ric_b]

I've upgraded to Retrospect Desktop 5.0.201 for OS X and am hoping to use it to restore to a new larger disk drive that I recently purchased. I did a backup of my old drive (everything was selected by default) without incident. I installed my new drive and did a restore to it, also without incident. I then selected the new disk to be the startup disk in system preferences and rebooted. The mac won't boot off the new disk.

 

 

 

After much trouble getting my original disk to boot into OS X, I reformatted the new disk again and used the Duplicate Volume immediate function in Retrospect, again without incident. Still the same result as above.

 

 

 

Does the disk need to somehow be formatted as a boot disk? And if so, why doesn't Retrospect not ask to do this for you?

[IrenaS]

What kind of computer? What kind of drive are you restoring to? Is the Ignore Privileges option checked for the destination volume (check this by doing a get info and changing the pull-down menu to Privileges)?

 

 

 

Were there errors during the backup/duplicate/restore? What happened when you tried to boot off the new disk?

[ric_b]

Beige G3 w/dual 500MHz G4s. The old disk is a 4.3GB SCSI drive and the new one is a 18.2GB SCSI. I took all the defaults for the restore and there were no errors reported. I'll look into the privileges next.

[jwarthman]

According to the Dantz Knowledge Base:

 

 

 

http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=knowledgebase_article&id=739

 

 

 

...you must first install OS X to the new drive, then restore the "entire disk" from your backup. I believe this might be necessary because Retrospect does not back up *all* files and directories, e.g. /dev.

 

 

 

To me this is a bit disconcerting. If I think I'm backing up the entire hard drive, why does Retrospect omit some files and/or folders?

 

 

 

I'm researching the issue of restoring a bootable drive because my TiBook (OS X 10.1.2) is having its 48 GB hard drive replaced today. When I return from the Apple Store, I plan on restoring the drive from my latest Retrospect backup.

 

 

 

I'll post the results...

 

 

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

-- Jim

[IrenaS]

Retrospect backs up and restores all files that you would need to restore your computer to it's exact state at the time of backup, asusming that you have selected yoru entire drive as your backup source, and used the "All Files" or "All Files Except Cache Files" selector.

 

 

 

Where are you seeing files and folders that are not backed up?

[jwarthman]

Irena,

 

If, as you say, Retrospect backs up and restores all files... then why does Dantz say to *first* install OS X, *then* do a "restore entire disk"? I conclude that the OS X install puts some files and/or folders on my hard drive that the backup/restore operation does not.

 

 

 

I read someplace that someone tried to do a complete restore such as I must do later today. Their result was that the /dev directory was not installed, hence the Mac failed to boot.

 

 

 

After reading this, I decided to see if my *complete* backup included my /dev directory.

 

 

 

Using the OS X terminal application, I changed my working directory to root ( cwd / ) and listed all the files ( ls -la ).

 

 

 

I then used Retrospect (5.0.201) to view my backup set onctents (under the Reports menu).

 

 

 

In the browser, I concentrated on the files and folders at he root level.

 

 

 

Not only is /dev missing, but other root files and directories are missing as well. It seems likely that these files and directories would be satisfactorily "restored" by a fresh OS X install.

 

 

 

I encourage you to do the same experiment. List the contents of the root directory on any OS X machine, and compare that with the root of the Retrospect backup.

 

 

 

Please tell us what you find.

 

 

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

-- Jim

 

 

 

 

[ric_b]

Jim,

 

 

 

Thanks for the valuable yet disconcerting info. The tech note escaped me at first. I'm on a small team of engineers that manage about 180 unix servers and at times we rely heavily upon the restore capabilities of our backup solutions. I hope Dantz can continue to beef up their app to achieve this level of capability on the mac platform.

 

 

 

Regards,

 

 

 

Ric

[jwarthman]

Ric,

 

Actually, as long as Dantz's recommended restore sequence works, I don't see this as a major concern.

 

 

 

I do wish this apparent "limitation" to the items that are backed up were more clearly identified and explained. Instead of burying it in a Knowledgebase Article, I think this should be featured prominently someplace in the Retrospect documentation - preferably in multiple places!

 

 

 

If I could get my TiBook to boot again, I would provide a more complete list of the directories that appear at the root level, which do not appear in my backup.

 

 

 

Ah well, perhaps Irena (or someone else from Dantz) will provide a complete list.

 

 

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

-- Jim

[IrenaS]

The instructions you're quoting are for Disaster Recovery, which assumes that your computer can't boot. If your computer isn't bootable, and/or if you've formatted it, it's going to be pretty tough to run Retrospect without installing a system first

 

 

 

Of course, Retrospect can still create bootable volumes without needing a system installed. For example, you could duplicate or restore to an empty partition on a computer that's booted into OS X, and that partition will be bootable.

 

 

 

The /dev directory does not get backed up by Retrospect, but it DOES get created on your destination when you restore or duplicate. /dev does not need to be backed up. It contains files that represent every device connected to your machine. This includes hardrives, removables, CD's, modems, terminals, and the list goes on. The contents of /dev are created during each reboot.