DVD-RAM problem

[bullcreek]

Since installing the 5.0 upgrade, I've had a problem backing up to my DVD-RAM drive.

 

 

 

The first disk will work fine, but when that one gets filled, and the program asks for another disk, it fails to recognize the media inserted in the drive. The "device status" button shows that Retrospect knows the drive is there, it just doesn't see the new disk when it's inserted. The new disk does show on the desktop. When I quit, relaunch, and restart the backup script, Retrospect "sees" the new disk, and things proceed normally until that disk is filled, when the same problem recurs.

 

 

 

OSX 10.1.3, Sawtooth G4, internal Matsushita DVD-RAM.

 

 

 

BTW - the beta version of Retrospect did not have this problem.

[IrenaS]

Thanks for the post. A few questions for you:

 

 

 

1) What is the exact drive (from the Device Status window), and connection type?

 

2) What file system is used to format the disks?

 

3) Are these erased disks or members of a previous backup set?

 

4) Have these disks been formatted/erased when under Mac OS X?

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

 

Irena Solomon

 

Dantz Tech Support

[nepster]

I'm having a similar problem, and a partial solution was to make sure the backup set I had selected was a "Removable Media" type of backup set, not a "CD/DVD" backup set. Of course, now I get a different error message. But if the media is showing up as a disk (round) and not a tilted floppy (squar-ish), this might be your solution.

[Sheppard]

I reported this and other problems with DVD-RAM during the beta trial. No fixes appeared to make it into the release and email to the beta coordinator has gone unanswered lately.

 

 

 

May as well post all the problems I encountered during beta here (Dantz has the details). The server is running on 9.2.2. In order of report, not importance:

 

 

 

• DVD-RAM icon on desktop is cool. Retrospect displays it as a floppy. Not cool.

 

 

 

• Can't erase new media properly (this was reported by others during beta and supposedly fixed for the release. It is now intermittent in the release version while it was 100% reproducible in the beta.)

 

Whenever R asks for a new member of the set, I insert the DVD-RAM media. R sees the volume with its current contents and tries to erase it. The volume is unmounted and the erase fails saying the media is locked (error 211). The media is ejected.

 

The Finder can erase this volume (I've tried both Mac OS Standard and Extended formats). I can copy files to it. I've also used the driver program to reinstall the driver to the media. Nothing helps.

 

R can erase the volume from the Configure Devices pane but the small print under the volume name says that the content is damaged. When the backup proceeds, it once again tries to erase it (although I just did that manually) and the erase fails as before.

 

Dropping back to R 4.3 I can do a backup with no problems. Once the media has been written to by 4.3, I can then continue using it in 5.0. I've also discovered that turning off filesharing before R tries to use the media also works and is much easier than dropping back to 4.3.

 

 

 

• Media not recognized after a crash. If a computer crash occurs, either in R or some other application, even while the backup server is idle, the media that is still inserted in the drive is not recognized unless the catalog is repaired. Even though this media was used by R prior to the crash, R justs waits for media until the catalog is repaired. The repair itself doesn't appear to do anything as no files are read.

 

 

 

Note that none of these problems exist in 4.3.

[bullcreek]

1) ID= ATAPI-B Vendor=Matshita Product=PD-2 LF-D110 Version=A110 Driver=ATAPI

 

 

 

2) Mac OS Extended

 

 

 

3) I've tried it both ways, both as erased disks, and as disks that previously were part of a backup set, doing a Recycle backup

 

 

 

4) They've all been erased under OS X, originally they were formatted in OS9.

 

 

 

An update on this issue -- I did a backup Saturday night/Sunday morning. When I saw that the backup was starting (and given that it was late at night), I quit everything that was running in the foreground (all "visible" processes), in hopes that it would run a bit quicker. When I did this, the problem with not being able to recognize inserted disks went away, and the backup proceeded normally, spanning five or six disks. This suggests to me that something that was running in the foreground was causing Retro somehow not to see the newly-inserted disks. I haven't had time since to experiment with what program may have been causing the problem (I'm suspicious of iTunes).

 

 

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

 

 

on 4/9/02 2:25 PM, forums@dantz.com at forums@dantz.com wrote:

 

 

 

>

 

> Thanks for the post. A few questions for you:

 

> 1) What is the exact drive (from the Device Status window), and connection

 

> type?

 

> 2) What file system is used to format the disks?

 

> 3) Are these erased disks or members of a previous backup set?

 

> 4) Have these disks been formatted/erased when under Mac OS X?

 

> Thanks,

 

> Irena Solomon

 

> Dantz Tech Support

 

>

 

 

[IrenaS]

What is the mechanism of the device? What firmware? (This is available from the Device Status window.)

 

 

 

Thanks

[Sheppard]

Your beta coordinator should have copies of all my original reports which included configuration information, but here it is for convenience:

 

 

 

PowerMac G4 450, 192 MB (256 MB Virtual)

 

Mac OS 9.2.2

 

Retrospect 5.0 Workgroup with 40 MB RAM

 

LaCie DVD-RAM drive

 

Matshita LF-D200 version A120 mechanism

 

Driver: SAI DVD-RAM Tuneup 2.2.3n. although Device Status reports .AppleCD

 

Orange Micro Grappler U.130 SCSI card