How to recreate a partition that Retrospect accepts

[pls2000]

I just lost the contents of a partition to a file system error. I recreated and reformatted the partition and attempted to restore.

 

I find that Retrospect considers the recreated partition to be different from the original partition. So Retrospect will not allow a restore to original source, because it thinks the original source partition isn't online.

 

How does retrospect identify partitions? What does it require besides a drive letter? And how can I recreate a partition and tell retrospect that it actually is the same as the old partition?

 

  Thanks,

     ++PLS

[Scillonian]

I don't know the exact criteria that Retrospect uses to identify a volume. The volume's UUID is possibly one of them along with its size. I know that size is used from having re-sized volumes.
 
Is the volume you are trying to restore on a disk attached to the backup server or on a client?
 
I attached to the backup server when you tried to do the restore did you use the Wizard mode or the Advanced mode?

If you click on 'Switch to Advanced Mode' on the initial Restore Wizard screen you are given more options on how files are restored. More details are in the Restore section of the Immediate Operations page of the Retrospect 8.1 for Windows User's Guide.

[pls2000]

The volume is on the backup server itself. I always used advanced settings on the restore and was able to restore using the Replace if Newer setting.

 

However I now have two problems. 

 

1. Since the new partition is a different volume I now have to update every backup script that references that volume, and

2. Since the new partition is a different volume, every file on it will be backed up on the next backup for each set that references that volume.

 

It is these problems I was hoping to avoid.

 

    ++PLS

[Scillonian]

The only time I have managed to get Retrospect to accept a restored volume as the original is when restoring it from an image created with an imaging application such as Clonezilla.

 

1. Since the new partition is a different volume I now have to update every backup script that references that volume, and

You would also run into this if you resized a volume or changed the file system.

 

2. Since the new partition is a different volume, every file on it will be backed up on the next backup for each set that references that volume.

As long as it is being backed-up to the same backup set as the original volume and nothing about the files has changed the duplication feature of Retrospect should see them as the same file. When I have resized a volume and Retrospect sees it as a new volume the existing files are not backed-up again.

 

However I have found that sometimes during a restore the metadata associated with a file will get changed, usually modified time or creation time, in which case Retrospect will see the file as changed and it will be backed-up again.

[pls2000]

This is just to give a final follow-up. I have replaced the failed drive, which fortunately did not include the Windows partition. Partitions are recreated and contents restored. This require restoring in sequence from 3 backup sets to get every file current.

 

I am now running the first regular backup to the same backup set the majority of files were restored from. And, as expected, retrospect is backing up every single byte. This is probably going to require that I do a recycle and full backup on every backup set I have.that references the failed drive.

 

Don't get me wrong, I like Retrospect. But this is easily its worst feature and right now I'm wondering why I bother with it.

 

    ++PLS