randykahle Posted August 2, 2004 Report Share Posted August 2, 2004 I have a PowerBook 17" with a Matshita DVD drive. I called Dantz today and they told me that they do not support this drive. One of my 17" PBs still works, another consistently gets "203 hardware failure" errors. Questions: * Is there an alternative to the Matshita? * Is there alternative backup software that works with the 17" PB? Thanks -- Randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted August 3, 2004 Report Share Posted August 3, 2004 Hi Please be specific about the model number of the Matshita drive in question. Dantz supports a number of Matshita drives. It sounds like yours may not be supported yet but chances are there is a driver in the works - the question is if/when it will be released. Dantz tries to support all of the built in mac drives. Sometimes it just takes a while to get a driver built. In rare cases problems with the drive or firmware postpone (sometimes permanently) the release of a driver. Thanks Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randykahle Posted August 3, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2004 The drive is UJ-815. This is the drive that shipped with the original 1 Ghz PowerBook 17" machine (Since early 2003). The person I spoke with at Dantz said "it is in the works". He further clarified that there were probably technical issues that they were working on. When I asked if this means they may never support it he answered "yes". This answer tracks your comments. For a drive that has shipped since early 2003, Dantz should be able to say if they can/will support it. A clear statement from Dantz about the status of support for the drive, such as (1) No, we cannot support it because of issue "x", or (2), yes we will support it and it is scheduled for an update in Q3 2004 would be very helpful. I do not have enough information to determine the best way to back up my computers. I would prefer to use the Retrospect, but it appears that I should be looking for another product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted August 4, 2004 Report Share Posted August 4, 2004 Hi This is not as clear cut an issue as it seems. When drivers are slow in coming chances are there is a problem with the firmware that prevent Dantz from creating a driver. In those cases we have to wait for the manufacturer or OEM vendor to provide patches before we can proceed. We have no control over when or if those patches are made available. Dantz wants to support as many devices as possible so we rarely give up and say "this device is not supported because of x". This is especially true with Apple OEM devices. We also don't want to point fingers - There are a lot of people involved in producing firmware updates. Making them angry does not help the situation. The good news is that Dantz is doing the responsible thing, thoroghly testing a device before releasing a driver. Granted it is not the ideal outcome in your situation but it is far better than losing a backup because of a device incompatiblity. Nate @ Dantz Technical Support Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randykahle Posted August 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2004 Nate, Thank you for the reply. I understand the situation better now. I am frustrated at the situation, not at Dantz, nor Apple. I would suggest that making more information available makes it easier for your customers to assess the situation and determine the appropriate actions. For example, if you find that firmware support for the UJ-815 drive does not currently allow Retrospect to support the drive, it would be helpful to know that another DVD drive would work. Then I could work with Apple to swap the drives and move forward. The thing that is so curious about my situation is that I have two 17" PowerBooks, with (presumably) identical DVD drives. One works and one does not work with Retrospect. I do have a follow-up question, prompted by your comments: If I perform and backup and Retrospect says that all completed normally (including the comparison phase), am I assured of having a good backup even though the DVD is not officially supported? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted August 5, 2004 Report Share Posted August 5, 2004 Hi Good point although in my experience Apple is not too keen on swapping drives because they don't work with Retrospect. The safe (albeit expensive) route is to go with an external backup device that is supported by Dantz. If the configuration finished successfully and the backup ran without error you should be just fine. I would run a verify of the media from the tools menu in Retrospect. I would also make another backup to a different media type if possible. Keep in mind that Dantz has not released a driver yet. To me that means the auto - configuration worked even though it probably shouldn't have. Thanks Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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