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5.6: Disaster Recovery woes


abe

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It seems that DR in 5.6.132 isn't worth much...

 

I've got a client with 5.6 that just upgraded to XP SP2, had to replace a HDD, and thought it would be a good idea to create DR CDs. So I ran a full backup and created a DR CD with a slipstreamed XP Home (upg) SP2 CD from a mapped network drive (this is on a laptop).

 

That process proceeded perfectly. The Backup set compared quite well (a couple of non-critical files didn't compare at offset x, but a second backup cleared those).

 

Using Verbatim DataLifePlus 700MB CDs in a Sony CRX700E, which is qualified as of version 5.15.

 

The test restore to a new HDD began badly: started booting from the DR CD, but was prompted to insert the XP Home SP2 CD from which the DR CD was created (odd). Then, as per usual with an upgrade, was prompted to insert a previous Windows version CD. No problem.

 

On continuing with the DR CD after choosing the partition, however, setup was unable to find "assert.exe". Had to switch to the DR CD.

 

That worked till 9% of the files were copied, then got stuck at "cinemst2.sys", and had to switch back to the XP Home SP2 CD.

 

That worked till 46%, "GENSEQ2K.INF". Switched back to the DR CD.

 

That worked till 47%, "fsvga.sys". Back to the SP2 CD, which had everything through the end of the initial file copying.

 

Prompted to reboot, then initial setup, then the DR prompt to reboot, then Retrospect loaded and the DR Wizard started. When prompted to insert the first member of the backup set, its status comes up as "unknown". Tried passing on that member but the second came up status unknown as well. Tried to load another snapshot with the same results.

 

On a lark I tried CTRL-ALT-P-P and checked "use NT SCSI Passthrough". Closed Retrospect, rebooted, and tried again. No go, same error. By now I'm of course ticked off cuz I've spent hours on this. No special driver update is required for this drive, I checked.

 

The set members register as set members just fine on another system with Retrospect 6.5.350. I confirmed that the Retrospect DR temp version is 5.6.132, just as it was when the backup was created. AND, the CDs register just fine for restore when booted from the source HDD: I tested them with a folder/file.

 

Anyone have any thoughts, or are we simply screwed for DR here? If restore works when booted from the source, why not when booted to the temp DR system? How to fix this??

 

Abe

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Hi

 

Retrospect 5.6 was released long before XP SP2. There may be something different about SP2 causing problems.

 

I'm not sure why it is failing like this. Its possible you would have had better luck building the DR CD directly from the install CD rather than the network share. Hard to say why though. Considering all the trouble you had it is suprising you got booted into DR mode at all.

 

I think you should try a base install of XP, install SP2 and do the restore over that.

 

Nate

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Thanks for your thoughts, Nate. 5.6 is indeed fairly old, though it has been working flawlessly with WinXP since it was released in the basic backup/restore arenas.

 

I wound up sticking the new drive into a mobile rack with a laptop drive adapter in my main system, booted to a spare W2K partition, then installed 5.6 and an old portable Plextor CD burner that is compatible with 5.6, and did the restore there. Worked out fine, and I'm glad I was able to confirm that DR in 5.6 is unreliable in my client's environment. Perhaps it's time for her to upgrade... ;-)

 

Abe

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