Wanting to restore backup from 2007, where do I start?

[Milehighlife]

I have a backup set made up with 8 DVDs last touched in 2008 on a Max I no longer have. I don’t have Retrospect currently but would like to restore the files to a working drive. I’ll pay for the new version of Retrospect just to recover the files but after searching, it seems this may not work. Does anyone know the solution?

Thanks in advance.

[MikeHutch]

No doubt a very late reply, but anyway...

Retrospect v6.1 came out in 2005 and wasn't updated until 2010, to v8.2. So it's most likely a v6.1 backup.

Not sure if the latest Retrospect version can read such an old backup format?

Try it... you can download your last licensed software from Retrospect's 'Archives' - just do a search on their website.

Assuming you know what your license code is. If not, email Retrospect team.

Otherwise, you'll need to get an old enough computer to run v6.1, v8.2 or v9 of Retrospect, and it's compatible MacOS version – I think they will probably be backward compatible.

[MikeHutch]

Sorry, I just realised that you could try an even simpler solution...

Before you do that, I'd try creating a catalog file from the backup disks with your latest version of Retrospect. I think you'll have a good chance of doing that.

To do that, go into the Media Sets panel, and click on the Rebuild icon near the top of that window. It will ask for the the backup disks, everyone of them in sequence, and will proceed to build the catalog. Obviously this will take some time.

Then you can restore whatever files/folders you want. Without the need to get an old version of Retrospect.