jwstulin Posted August 16, 2004 Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 Hi there: I apologize if this question has been asked before but I just upgraded to a dual 2 G5 with the new 8x superdrive. I cannot get this drive to work with Retrospect. It tells me to configure the drive. After I try to configure it I get the spinning beachball of death. Does anyone know what might be wrong? Am I the only one who cannot get it working? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Jeff Stulin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
menoche Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Jeff, Thanks for starting this thread. I just updated and have encountered the same problem. It also seems to be similar to what owners of new PowerBooks are encountering. I had been looking forward to faster back-ups with the new faster drives. In checking on-line and with Retrospect tech support, it appears that the drive in my computer HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4082B does not even show up as existing (i.e. it is not approved, disapproved, or even pending to be scheduled). I imagine that it would be helpful if everyone having this problem were to post their Device names/IDs. This was standard install on the latest (over a month now) round of G5 Dual-processor computers (Dual 1.8 in my case). If anyone from Dantz monitoring is able to share the information, perhaps you could give us a timeline as to when these drives will be tested (and hopefully approved, supported, and added to an upcoming driver/software update). Thanks, cpm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwstulin Posted August 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 19, 2004 I appreciate your response. Up until then I though that I must be crazy and that no one else is having this problem. It is amazing. This is supposed to be a Macintosh product but It does not seem to support the Macintoshes being sold. Also noone from Dantz has replied with any information about this problem. Does anyone use this product or are we the only ones? My drive name is: HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4082B. I don’t know what all these letters mean but I think that Dantz should and I think that this Macintosh drive should be supported by their Macintosh product. I would like to know if we are the only two with this problem or if there are others. This lack of response from Dantz is very frustrating… Thanks for listening, Jeff Stulin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted August 24, 2004 Report Share Posted August 24, 2004 Hi When everything goes smoothly Dantz can create and release a driver shortly after recieving a device for testing. However there are a lot of things beyond our control that slow the process dramatically. I assure you, we do everything in our power to get these drives certified as soon as possible. Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwstulin Posted August 24, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 24, 2004 Nate: Thank you for your reply. This is the first indication from Dantz that I have seen indicating that they know the lack of these drivers is a problem and that they are working on it. While I will not take any answer to the following question as a promise since I well understand that these things can not accurately be pinned down, can, for planning purposes, you give an indication of the most likely time frame for completion of this driver? Are we talking about weeks, months, or a year? Thanks, Jeff Stulin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anachron Posted August 28, 2004 Report Share Posted August 28, 2004 I also have a new G5 2.0 DP w/8x superdrive and have experienced exactly the problem described above: spinning beachball of 'death' right after attempting to configure the drive using DVD+R media. Please update this thread as soon as an RDU is released that addresses this problem and adds compatibility for this drive. Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaisa Posted August 30, 2004 Report Share Posted August 30, 2004 Please aware that Dantz is offering no support on unsupported drives. Even if you manage to auto configure it it doesn't mean it works as you think. I am encoutering very strange behaviours with retrospect and the most frequent answers is: "look online, it is not supported this configuration" or "it is as it is". So after a total data loss I cannot recover all my files although they were written with verify and everything was ok. But hey, retrospect is great. While reconstructing the catalog it manges to find over 90GB of data on the first DVD... (latest Retro 6 with os x 10.3.3 and 10.3.5). I didn't wait any longer. Although I have be working my whole mac life with retrospect since version 1, I now hate them as hell. Just look at the supported DVD drives. They are WAY too old to buy not even thinking about them in europe. Hey guys at Dantz, there are people in Europe! Hey, there are more than 5 DVD drives on the market. WAKE UP! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anachron Posted August 30, 2004 Report Share Posted August 30, 2004 I wonder if Dantz is shorting the Mac version of Retrospect when it comes to speed of new hardware support, bug fixes, etc. It is true that the installed base of Windows OSes is 10 times larger than Mac OS9/OS X, and that sentimentality doesn't count for much in the world of business. But it would be nice if Retrospect would support all Superdrives (DVD-R) that Apple ships installed in new Powerbooks, Powermacs, etc. I really don't want to have to buy a separate external DVD-R drive JUST for use with Retrospect when I already have a perfectly good 8x DVD-R factory installed in my G5 optical drive bay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted September 2, 2004 Report Share Posted September 2, 2004 Hi I can assure you that Macintosh device support remains high priority for us. Dantz makes every effort to thoroughly test and qualify new devices as quickly as possible. In the end we need to provide drivers that are reliable enough to be trusted with your backup data. In some cases that can require the co-operation of many companies in many countries. It can also require a lot a lot of time. Thanks Nate @ Dantz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anachron Posted September 30, 2004 Report Share Posted September 30, 2004 Any update on this? I see another RDU has been released that includes support for removable disk drives from obscure makers. Please make support for the stock hardware in Apple professional-level products a top priority. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pjroberts Posted September 30, 2004 Report Share Posted September 30, 2004 kaisa said, Hey guys at Dantz, there are people in Europe! Hey, there are more than 5 DVD drives on the market. WAKE UP! Not only in Europe. Dantz is providing non-support for DVD-users everywhere! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pjroberts Posted September 30, 2004 Report Share Posted September 30, 2004 Quote: Hi there: I apologize if this question has been asked before but I just upgraded to a dual 2 G5 with the new 8x superdrive. I cannot get this drive to work with Retrospect. It tells me to configure the drive. After I try to configure it I get the spinning beachball of death. Does anyone know what might be wrong? Am I the only one who cannot get it working? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Jeff Stulin No Jeff, you are not alone. Although there are people who are able to do DVD backups, at the moment they seem to be in a minority. Retrospect does not work with either my Apple-provided internal drive (Pioneer DVD-107D) or my external LaCie 8x d2 DVD±RW Double Layer (ND-2510A version) CD/DVD (even though Dantz says the LaCie device is supported!). My sense from the forums is that Dantz provides more non-support for DVD drives than support. IMHO Dantz/Retrospect has been derailed by OS X and DVD drives. If there is some serious technical challenge regarding DVD drives, it would be nice if Dantz were more forthcoming and gave us an idea of where they are in the process of providing support. "Working hard" does not convey very much information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted October 1, 2004 Report Share Posted October 1, 2004 Hi To help put this in context: Retrospect has a driver creation wizard that can build a custom driver for many devices. The wizard works by sending roughly 40 different read/write/verify commands to the device. If the device can reliably execute enough of those commands Retrospect creates a driver and the device will work. If the device fails some/all of those commands the device is deemed unreliable for storing backup data and the process fails. This wizard tests two different write methods - packet writing and the much more common track at once (TAO) before it gives up on a drive. When there are problems severe enough to cause auto configuration to fail, Dantz has to engineer specialized drivers. I assure you Dantz does its best to support as many new devices as possible. Sometimes driver creation is easy and the drivers are released soon and work great. Other times its not easy and drive support is slow in coming. In these cases a lot of outside factors can slow or even stop driver creation. I know this doesn't help your situation much. Hopefully it gives you a better picture of the factors involved. Thanks Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJaMmin Posted October 6, 2004 Report Share Posted October 6, 2004 YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!!! I'm new to this forum, but I've used Retrospect for quite some time. I too just bought a new G5 2.5 & it is a awesome machine, but it came with the HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4082B (8X burner that apparently isn't yet supported) Can anyone indicate if Retrospect will test/support these systems anytime soon?!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterd Posted October 11, 2004 Report Share Posted October 11, 2004 I received today my new G5 dual 1.8. I ordered the slowest one with PCI slots in order to use my HP dds 3 back up drive with adaptec-card since an old iMac died that served that purpose (with optional SCSI/TV card from Formac). The computer turns out to have also those jetsons-style PCI-X slots, so still no dds drive to back-up to. and the HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4082B superdrive doesn't configure with retrospect. I just upgraded to Retrospect 6 for the office, and I come all the way from Retrospect 2. I'm very disappointed to read that proper support for factory drives –how sinister HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4082B may read– on factory machines is not existant. this thread contains promises since august! and yes, also Apple is to blame because selling a server solution (we run Panther OSXserver) and OSX systems that cannot be properly backed up (not until Dantz released 6.0, and still not for many media and drives) nor support network trash folders. it is utterly dangerous to put this hard- and software in the hands of people -we all do make mistakes, don't we. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anachron Posted October 21, 2004 Report Share Posted October 21, 2004 As a service to others waiting on this issue, and to satisfy my curiousity: I upgraded to Retrospect 6.0.204 / RDU 5.9.104 (most recent) and re-tried the device-configuration routine for the built-in Superdrive in my G5 2.0 DP w/2 GB RAM (purchased 8/2004.) Now, shortly after beginning the configuration test routine, a spinning beachball (of death) appears, Retrospect becomes unresponsive, and upon Force Quit, the system kernel panics and hard shutdown is necessary. For the record, my system configuration is stock except for the 2.0GB of RAM. I am using Ritek G04 DVD-R media, which works fine in this drive for other purposes such as Finder burning and DVD video burning in Toast.From system profiler: HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4082B: Manufacturer: HL-DT-ST Model: HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4082B Revision: C039 Serial Number: K2H45LE0004 Drive Type: CD-RW/DVD-RW Disc Burning: Apple Supported/Shipped Removable Media: Yes Detachable Drive: No Protocol: ATAPI Unit Number: 0 Socket Type: Internal Dantz, please support this drive. I understand it can take some time but, really, how much? My $500 license for Retrospect Server isn't worth much if I can't make any backups to DVD-R. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glc Posted October 24, 2004 Report Share Posted October 24, 2004 I too have a HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4082B Dantz clearly does not give a [censored]. All I've seen is words and actions speak louder than words. Retrospect used to be a good product. Now it's mediocre at best on the windoze platform (where they're spending all their time) and mediocre at the very best on Mac. I'm disgusted with all the money I've given them over the years. They especially played the upgrade-rip-off game when moving to version 6.x. I'm going to continue to use a pirated version until I find something better. And believe me, I'm looking. I've been an IT professional for 20+ years and their software no longer belongs in the category of software I would consider to be of professional quality. Speak all the corp-speak you want Mr Phd-backup. I see no action and your words blow in the wind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason3142 Posted October 29, 2004 Report Share Posted October 29, 2004 <------- Retrospect 6 on G5 2.5 DP - STILL NO WORKING BACKUP SOFTWARE FOR OVER A MONTH! Can anybody recommend any other office standard backup software that works with my G5? As I can not allow this to continue. I have been a retrospect user since V2 and have always relied upon it, we were forced to upgraded to V6 some months back and now that does not work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glc Posted October 30, 2004 Report Share Posted October 30, 2004 If you want to backup to removeable media, I'm not sure what to recommend. As Restrospect went down the tubes, I just bought an external firewire drive and use that. If you want to go drive-to-drive, look at Apple Backup or SuperDuper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glc Posted October 30, 2004 Report Share Posted October 30, 2004 I beg your pardon. Apple Backup DOES support removeable media (CD/DVD) which of, course, includes the new Superdrive we're complaining about and Dantz/EMC is too WINDOZED to work on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil_lunarcode Posted October 31, 2004 Report Share Posted October 31, 2004 I need to echo other users' sentiments. Support the standard Mac internal DVD-R drives! I've been using Retrospect 5.1 for years with CD-R. I'm unable to use Retrospect with my internal Pioneer DVR-107D on new Dual 2 GHz G5. After configuring the drives successfully in Retrospect 5.1, I have attempted several backups, with mixed success. One backup resulted in an error 105 (unexpected end of data); another ended in error 204 (device busy). I guess I'll have to revert back to CD-R, while I look for a new backup solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anachron Posted December 6, 2004 Report Share Posted December 6, 2004 Hi Dantz, any update on this? It' s been half a year now. I'm really quite disappointed and sorry I bothered to spend half a thousand dollars on Retrospect Server, only to have it unable to function without dropping another couple hundred bucks on a redundant external DVD-R drive. PLEASE IMPLEMENT SUPPORT FOR THE BUILT-IN DRIVES. I hope Dantz's recent acquisition by EMC doesn't portend the end of Dantz's long and illustrious history of Mac support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anachron Posted January 15, 2005 Report Share Posted January 15, 2005 Thanks, Dantz, for finally supporting this drive in the latest Retrospect Driver Update. (6.1.) Tested, works fine with Retrospect 6.0.204 on Powermac G5 2.0 DP June 2004. *sigh of relief* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pozzlux Posted January 20, 2005 Report Share Posted January 20, 2005 I'm not sure I'd call it a fix just yet. Yes, the new driver cured the problem I was having (writing as little as 100 megs to 4.4 gig DVD members of a back up set and then moving on to the next member), but I wouldn't call 32 megs per minute "fixed." I haven't seen (and been happy about) that kind of back up speed since the days of Retrospect on my 840AV (what was that, a 32Mhz processor?) with an Exabyte drive. That's pretty dismal performance. PowerMac G5 Dual 2.5Ghz, System 10.3.7 and using the new 6.1.102 driver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glc Posted January 24, 2005 Report Share Posted January 24, 2005 Oooooooooooooooooooooooo - but it's NATIVE! Don't you like dropping back 6 years technologically? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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