Retrospect 5 is taking over ALL my DVD-RW devices!

[derrickbass]

I recently acquired a Powerbook with an internal DVD-RW. I also have an external DVD-RW drive in a firewire enclosure that I was previously using for backups.

 

I was running a backup to the internal SuperDrive and decided to attach the external drive so I could watch a DVD. But the DVD never mounted! (And I couldn't eject it either.) I gave up in confusion, but later, as soon as Restrospect finished and quit, the DVD mounted. I have since realized that when backing up to one of those drives, the other is taken over as well, even though it is not being used for the backup. Even if a DVD is already in the drive, it is unmounted (though not ejected) as soon as the backup begins. I can retrieve my DVDs when Restrospect needs a change of media and brings up the dialog box, but I still can't mount them and play them. Retrospect even unmounts disks during the media scan that checks to see whether everything is ready for the next night's backup.

 

I also cannot use the extra DVD writer in iTunes or Disk Utility, both of which report that it is "busy".

 

Is this obnoxiousness fixed in Retrospect 6? If not, will it be fixed, someday?

[natew]

Hi

 

You can tell Retrospect to ignore devices of your choosing in the configure->devices->device status window.

 

Thanks

Nate

[derrickbass]

Well, I guess that's a workaround, but an annoying one. My external drive is faster as well as being fully supported by Retrospect (the internal one is using a driver that Retrospect created and I don't fully trust that. So when I'm home, I'd like to use that for backups, but when I'm on the road, obviously I'll have to use the internal drive. So I'll have to keep changing the setting.

 

I take it that Retrospect 6 behaves the same way? Is there any chance that if I submit a bug report someone will consider changing the behavior to something more reasonable? Every other program in the universe seems to take over the device only when it is actually using it.

[natew]

Hi

 

Retrospect 6.0 works the same way.

You are welcome to post a suggestion about this in the product suggestions forum.

 

Thanks

Nate

[derrickbass]

I just tried this suggestion and it is not working. The "Ignore ID" button is greyed out.

[derrickbass]

Okay, so I needed to tell Retrospect to "Forget" my drive first. Then the next time it launched it came up with a dialog in which I was able to hit "forget."

 

However, Retrospect has not really forgotten that drive. When a DVD backup is initiated and it scans for devices, it ejects whatever disk is in the drive (even if I'm actually using it, e.g. watching a DVD). I can reinsert the disk and it will mount, but still, that's pretty obnoxious behavior.