Backing up to external drive (Seagate)

[CALF]

I have Retrospect 6.1.126 and am using Tiger 4.5 on a G4. I can't get Retrospect to do either an incremental or recycle backup to my external drive. I either get the message that the "execution is incomplete" (no real reason) or not enough disk space (but has should be--it's 300 GB and my whole home drive is only 80 GB with only 55 used). One strange thing I noticed the other day was that among the catalogs in the Retrospect folder, there was what looked like an actual full backup of my HD in my home folder (it is 28 GB). I moved it to the trash because it did not have the .cat after it and thought it was some kind of mistake. I followed the manual directions when setting this up, making sure my source disk was my HD and the destination disk was the external drive. I can't find a way to check that now to be absolustely sure. I am clueless as to what is happening.

 

Any advice would be so much appreciated.

 

Hazel

CALF@swbell.net

[CallMeDave]

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I followed the manual directions when setting this up, making sure my source disk was my HD and the destination disk was the external drive.

 

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For Retrospect Backups, the "Source" is always a volume, and the "Destination" is always a Backup Set. There is no "destination disk" in a File Backup Set.

 

When you first created your File Backup Set, you were given a standard Mac OS file save dialog box. It sounds as if you erred and didn't save it to the intended location.

 

If you still have both parts of the File Backup Set ("foo" and "foo.cat") you could copy them to the external drive, forget the existing entry in the Backup Set Database window, then re-add the correct Backup Set (making sure to delete the original saved large file before your proceed, so you don't back it up again).

 

But if you've lost one part or the other, your wisest course is to make a new File Backup Set, make _sure_ that you have saved it to your external drive, and do your backup again.

 

Dave

[CALF]

Thank you for your reply. I wound up starting from scratch and deleting the full backup that had wound up on my HD. But I was unable to do the backup to the external drive. I think the first time I chose FILE as the destination. Am I supposed to choose REMOVABLE DISK? I don't think Retrospect is able to see the external drive mounted on my desktop, however. It is there and on, but Retrospect is not scanning it. Any further advice?

[twickland]

1. Go to Configure> Backup Sets.

2. If the unusable backup set is listed, highlight it, and click "Forget."

3. Click "New..."

4. Select backup set type "File."

5. Accept the suggested name of the backup set, or enter your desired name.

6. Click "New..."

7. A window titled "Choose a Folder" will appear.

8. At the left of that window, highlight the desired drive where you want the backup set to be located, and, if necessary, the desired folder on that drive. (This is the same dialog you would get when saving a file from almost any application.)

9. Confirm that the desired drive/folder has been selected, and click "Save."

10. Go to the drive in Finder and confirm that the backup set file is where you expected it to be.

[CALF]

So you are saying that I do not choose the "volume" itself as a destination? The manual is very unclear about that; I have read it till I'm crazy. My external drive does indeed show in the devices list, but there is no way to actually select it as the destination. But that's not what the manual implies.

Now the external drive is empty, no files, no operating system. So, will backing up this way (using File) actually create a bootable back up?

[CallMeDave]

There is no such thing as a bootable backup.

 

Retrospect has two very different modes; Backup and Duplicate.

 

Duplicate is capable of providing a bootable copy, much the same way that Carbon Copy Cloner can.

 

Backups handle incremental changes, a process that can be faster then Duplicating (due to the speed of Matching against a Destination catalog versus Matching against a Destination volume). They also provide historical snapshots of how the Source volume looked at any time.

 

Twickland's suggestions above were for a Backup (which is how you titled your post). When you configure a Duplicate, you'll see your mounted external volume in the list of usable Sources.

 

Dave

[CALF]

Obviously my understanding of backups is fairly vague, and though I have used Retrospect for years, I have never really understood how it works all that well. So I appreciate this information. This leaves me with one further question. My external drive is much larger than my HD, so space is not an issue. Would it be possible for me to have both a duplicate and a backup of my HD on the one external drive? One so I could boot up from it if need be, and one for the incremental backups? I know that I cannot boot up from that drive right now. It now contains the HD backup and catalog that resulted from following the above instructions yet doesn't appear in the choices of startup disks.

If that is not possible, perhaps I should just go ahead and install the OS on that drive and just have the backup be the only "file."

[twickland]

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Would it be possible for me to have both a duplicate and a backup of my HD on the one external drive?

 

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If there's enough room, and if you use a File Backup Set as I suggested, yes. Remember, though, that the amount of space taken up by the incremental backup will continue to grow; how fast will depend on how often your source files are modified, and how many and how large they are. Eventually you will run out of disk space and will have to recycle the backup set, which will cause you to lose all of your previously backed-up data unless you hava a way to copy it to another medium, such as burning it to CDs or DVDs.

 

With this in mind, you might want to consider having two backup sets that you switch between. When Set A becomes full, you would recycle Set B and use that until it became full, after which you would recycle and use Set A, etc.

 

(Ideally, you yould have a second backup set on some medium that can be taken off-site, so you would be protected in the event of a physical disaster such as fire or flood.)

 

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[P]erhaps I should just go ahead and install the OS on that drive and just have the backup be the only "file."

 

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While it would not offer the convenience of a full duplicate, having the OS and a copy of the Retrospect application on the same disk as your backup set would enable you to boot up and restore your files. However, remember that you will either need to have enough remaining space on that drive or on some other drive on your computer to restore the files to; you can't directly access files or run applications that were written to a backup set without first restoring them. Only a Duplicate will provide that capability.

[CallMeDave]

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Would it be possible for me to have both a duplicate and a backup of my HD on the one external drive?

 

 

If there's enough room, and if you use a File Backup Set as I suggested, yes

 

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_Only_ if the Duplicate uses the "Replace corosponding files" option. If the default "Replace entire disk" option is used, Retrospect will delete the File Backup Set when the Duplicate runs (since it doesn't exist on the Source).

 

Dave

[CALF]

Thank you so much. You have been so helpful.