RestorePoint.rbc file - what is it?

[ftk]

After using HD successfully for many months, I got a '2242 Catalog File Duplicated or ambiguous' message when trying to do a backup immediately after deleting some restore points. The delete process and disk reclamation both had ended fine.

 

Searching the forum, I found someone else had the problem and the suggestion was to get rid of the file Restorepoint.rbc in the retrospect directory on the backup disk.

 

I did this, but then found that backup said my backup disk wasn't available when I tried to backup. However, the restore option did find the disk and would show me the files in backup sets. So, figuring I had nothing to lose, I deleted another backup set.

 

Once again, the deletion and disk cleanup went fine, but then, Restrospect popped a message saying maintenance was being done, could take a while and initially saying 0 backup set were available. About 1 hour later, the maintenance got done and all the backsets were there. A small test showed they worked.

 

When I then tried a backup, however, the disk not available message popped again. I checked setup and found that the disk selection for F was no longer checked and, after checking it, backup worked fine.

 

I then checked the Retrospect directory on F to see what Restorepoint.rbc looked like. And, here's the question.

 

There wasn't any file named RestorePoint.rbc. A search showed no file named RestorePoint.rbc existed anywhere on the machine. However, the file named Restorepoint had been rebuilt and dropped in size considerably,

 

So, if RestorePoint.rbc isn't rebuilt during maintenance or backup or restore, why does removing it have any effect? TIA