Retrospect seems to think we all still have DVD drives on our systems.

[x509]

So I just upgraded to V17, and even before installing the software I read the Disaster Recovery section of the manual.  On p. 278, it refers to putting the recovery software onto an optical disk.  Huh?  My 2017 laptop didn't come with an optical disk or a "superbay" in which to hold such a drive. (I also used that bay for a second HDD or battery).  Since I build all my own desktops, I have noticed that many enthusiast cases no longer have 5.25 inch front drive bays.  My wife's 2019 laptop is probably too thin to even hold an optical drive.

I'm not sure about servers, since I don't live in that world any longer.  But certainly for Retrospect Professional, the only practical media of choice for recovery software is a USB stick. 

Now in practice it's no problem using a utility like Rufus (https://rufus.ie/  ) to create a USB image from an ISO.  But

1. Why can't Retrospect support this capability natively.

2. Barring #1, at least document the overall approach to creating a USB image.

 

Just saying ...

 

x509

[Lennart_T]

It is the user guide that isn't updated. (And probably some of the GUI as well.) (Don't get me started on the state of the user guide....)

You can create an emergency boot "disc" on an USB memory, I have done so myself. I can't seem to find the document on how to do that.

[x509]

Lennart,

I routinely use the Rufus tool that I linked to in post #1 to create a USB bootable device.  That's easy.  The hard part is/was figuring out which of I'm guessing over different utilities all claim to be the best for this purpose.

[Nigel Smith]

3 hours ago, Lennart_T said:

(Don't get me started on the state of the user guide....)

Perhaps you and David could form a club? If there's T-shirts, I'll join!

[DavidHertzberg]

x509 and Lennart_T and Nigel Smith,

Did I hear my name mentioned? 😃 

(Disclaimer: Anything I may say about the intentions of Retrospect "Inc." in this or any other post is merely the result of "reading the tea leaves", the "tea leaves" being documentation and public announcements supplemented by an occasional morsel from Retrospect Sales.  I have never been paid a penny by Retrospect "Inc." or its predecessors, and I pay for my upgrades. Any judgements expressed are—obviously—mine alone.)

I Am Not A Lawyer—much less a software licensing expert, but I don't think Retrospect could natively support the code from Rufus without putting all of its own code—including its source code—under the GPL3 License .   StorCentric isn't going to want to do that, nor IMHO would they want to devote engineers' time to developing their own equivalent code; Retrospect Engineering's now focused on a Drobo "backup server" (2nd long prgf.). 

So IMHO the best you can hope for is an update to the Retrospect Windows User's Guide describing how to use Rufus; here's how to request that.  x509 should be the one to create the Support Case, since he seems to be the only one of you three who regularly uses Retrospect Windows; I've not had a Windows (95) machine since 2004.  I  suggest x509 follow it up with an e-mail—citing the Support Case number—to the Director of Worldwide Sales; Werner Walter's e-mail address is Werner.Walter@retrospect.com .   I recommend having the e-mail emphasize how bad it's going to look to a potential Retrospect Windows customer to see that the UG has a Disaster Recovery procedure which uses a semi-obsolete piece of hardware. 🙄

As for forming a club with T-shirts, I've never had one printed.  If we get printing done before 31 December 2020, maybe we can get it done cheaply in Lombardy by guest workers from Wuhan (sick Brexit/COVID-19 joke; apologies 😢 ).  That would facilitate presenting a T-shirt to StorCentric's Rod Harrison, whom I believe lives most of the time in Britain.  The T-shirt might make him, and Retrospect "Inc.", turn aside from Drobo-centrism. 🤣

Edited November 20, 2020 by DavidHertzberg
Parenthetical apology for sick Brexit/COVID-19 joke in final paragraph. Add links in first paragraph after disclaimer and final paragraphs.

[x509]

Well, whadda know.  In fact Retrospect 17 DOES support creating USB recovery media.  It's just the bleeding documentation which is behind the times.

 

Of course, even the software is not completely up to date.  Starting with Windows update 1809, that is September, 2018, there is a supplementary download needed to create recovery media.  And you would not know that unless you read some of the Microsoft documentation associated with the Windows Assessment and Deployment Toolkit (WADK).

I'm writing this as Retrospect is creating recovery media. 

Wish me luck.

[DavidHertzberg]

x509,

Congrats on discovering what you've written just above! 😄  Immediately, for the benefit of other Retrospect Windows administrators, please post in this thread how you reached the dialog shown in your screenshot.  I'll take a WildA*sedGuess that you reached it while executing steps described on page 276 of the Retrospect Windows 17 User's Guide, probably as a sub-dialog that's now been added to step 2 or step 3 at the bottom of the page.

Following up, I've now discovered how to find out where to get the WADK supplementary downloads.  Informed by you and surmising the workings of the august Documentation Committee, I decided—because of that committee's 2015–2019 prohibition on updating any part of the UGs except the "What's New" chapters—that some engineer must instead have written a Knowledge Base article.  Here's the article—last updated 17 December 2019, created by adding a "Retrospect 15 and Higher" section to an already-existing KB article rearranged latest-to-earliest.  (The Wayback Machine shows that KB article had been last updated 22 April 2014—with non-sectioned earliest-to-latest paragraphs culminating with Retrospect Windows 9.)  Remember that Retrospect Windows skipped versions 13 and 14 in order to regain version number parity with Retrospect Mac as of version 15.  If you'd guessed that KB article existed—which you undoubtedly couldn't have done, it would have told you the Microsoft document about downloads associated with the Windows Assessment and Deployment Toolkit (WADK)—and about adding a file before creating your Disaster Recovery image.

After adding the post to this thread, you should immediately create a documentation Support Case; here's how to do that.  In the Problem Statement, please feel free to copy any parts of my posts as well as your own posts from this thread.  If you've already created a Support Case per my second paragraph below the disclaimer in this preceding post in the current thread, just add those copied parts as one or more Additional Notes overriding the request to document the use of Rufus.  In either case, the Support Case should suggest that the easiest way to update the Windows UG would be to insert instructions on activating the dialog—including a link to the KB article—appropriately on page 276 of the Retrospect Windows 17 UG.

Once you have created that Support Case, I  again suggest you follow it up with an e-mail—citing the Support Case number—to the Director of Worldwide Sales; Werner Walter's e-mail address is Werner.Walter@retrospect.com .   I again recommend having this e-mail emphasize how bad it's going to look to a potential Retrospect Windows customer to see that the UG has a Disaster Recovery procedure which uses only a semi-obsolete piece of hardware—especially when we now know a modern Disaster Recovery procedure is already almost completely documented in a "Windows Disaster Recovery Driver Guide" KB article on the Retrospect "Inc." website that no administrator is likely to find—because of its title. 🙄

Retrospect "Inc." already has an employee authorized to mess around with the UGs for version 17, who I've nicknamed the StorCentric Slasher in the first long paragraph after the disclaimer in this post in another thread.  But I've just figured out his/her probable formal job description; IMHO it's the support engineer hired by Sales a few months ago.  He/she was—I'd guess because of being comparatively useless due to lack of prior knowledge of Retrospect—given the job of copying a number of KB articles as Appendixes into version 17 of the UGs.  In two separate Retrospect 9 or higher for Macintosh Forum threads, I've denounced the StorCentric slasher for ignorantly deleting (to save space?) multiple paragraphs explaining pop-up options.  However his/her inserting ability seems to be OK, so I suggest that he/she be given responsibility for the Disaster Recovery updating.

[x509]

I ran into various issues when trying to do a disaster recovery, which I will cover in new threads.