Retrospect 4.3 to Retrospect 6.1.126

[poindexter]

We have a large volume of legacy data stored on DDS tape, to be exact, the model is: HP DAT DDS-DC (Model: HP 35480A).

 

We are in the process of trying to migrate everything over to another system, utilizing RAID and more standard unix tools. Right now the drives are plugged into Power Mac G5's.

 

The following problem manifests itself: the tapes load, everything works as expected, but then it reaches the point of: "Rebuilding catalog" and after a few minutes, goes off into space, generates errors and never returns.

 

The backups were made with Retrospect 4.3, under Mac OS 9, we are currently using Retrospect 6.1.126, under OS X 10.4.6 to attempt to pull the data off them.

 

So my question is: is it necessary to rebuild the catalogs? The tapes work just fine under OS/9 and sinking into the tar pits technology, but there is a huge, vast amount of them, and pulling everything using old Macs is really not very feasible time-wise.

 

I am pretty happy that it seems to at least PARTIALLY work, and that Retrospect survived in some way, merged/was bought out/whatever, and still EXISTS in 2006, as opposed to having gone out of business 5 years ago to better serve their customers.

 

I guess my question is: will the current version of Retrospect successfully rebuild catalogs on DDS tape, that were generated by 4.3? If not, is there any other way I can simply pull the data off the tapes; all of it is within whatever proprietary format Retrospect used to put it there, back in the 90's. As mentioned, the data itself all appears to be there and recoverable, under OS 9 and very old Macs, using very old Retrospect copies. The current Retrospect simply doesn't seem to be regenerating the Catalogs (which it always wants to do).

 

Thanks for any insights.

[rhwalker]

To ask the stupid question, why are you rebuilding the catalogs rather than just transferring them over?

 

When we made this same transition, we just copied the old catalogs over and Retrospect 6 could read them fine. I just checked moments ago, and Retrospect 6.1.126 was able to read catalogs from the beginning of 1993 made on ASIP 4.2 / Mac OS 7.5 and Retrospect 2.1. I also checked that Rerospect 4.3 catalogs made with ASIP 6.3 / Mac OS 8.6 were readable with Retrospect 6.1.126 on Mac OS X Server 10.4. I also did test restores of those old tapes when we did the ASIP to OS X Server migration a while back. It all just worked.

 

I just don't understand why you are going through the pain of rebuilding the old catalogs from tape. That could take a very long time. Is there something that I am missing?

 

Russ

[poindexter]

Because when we attempt to transfer the old catalog onto the new computer, the restore function does not recognize it as a valid catalog. The file itself is greyed out (but seen on the drive). To reiterate, it does not seem to be a problem with the tape being damaged or corrupted, because it does this for EVERY SINGLE TAPE we've tried to far, and the tapes load with no problem, using OS 9 and older copies of Retrospect.

 

Is there anything else I am missing or should try? Any advice is appreciated, I am unfamiliar with Retrospect and legacy OS 9 apps -- the problem being, so is everybody else at the department I inherited. If there is something really obvious and stupid that I'm missing, enlightenment or suggestions, greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks for your reply!

[rhwalker]

Not quite clear how you did the catalog transfer. Here's what worked for us:

 

Logged on to our new Xserve (with Retrospect 6 Workgroup) from the retiring ASIP Retrospect machine, copy the whole bunch of old catalog files into the catalog folder used by Retrospect on Xserve ("/Applications/Retrospect 6.1/Catalogs"). If necessary, change catalog ownership appropriately as needed in Terminal on the Xserve (e.g., "chown root:admin *" when in the Catalogs folder, perhaps "chmod 660 *" if you want).

 

Then, on the Xserve, in Retrospect, Configure > Backup Sets, click "More", then "Open", select desired catalog to add to list of available catalogs.

 

Are you saying that they are greyed out at this point? It's been just over a year ago, but it "just worked" for us.

 

russ

[waltr]

Quote:

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We have a large volume of legacy data stored on DDS tape, to be exact, the model is: HP DAT DDS-DC (Model: HP 35480A).

 

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i found your drive, and it's definitely supported:

 

http://emcinsignia.com/supportupdates/technical/retrospect/detail/?id=7612

 

Quote:

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The following problem manifests itself: the tapes load, everything works as expected, but then it reaches the point of: "Rebuilding catalog" and after a few minutes, goes off into space, generates errors and never returns.

 

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what SCSI card are you using? can you give brand/model?

[CallMeDave]

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I just checked moments ago, and Retrospect 6.1.126 was able to read catalogs from the beginning of 1993 made on ASIP 4.2 / Mac OS 7.5 and Retrospect 2.1.

 

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Just remember that a pre-6.0 catalog file tht is used by the current version of Retrospect will then no longer be usable by the old, legacy version of the program.

 

And while the old Catalogs will allow files to be Restored (and probably Tranferred), you cannot use the old Catalog files to perform additional backups to your Set Members. Your old tapes will be read-only when used on your new system.

 

There have also been some reports with problems when a Member is marked as Missing on a read-only Catalog; if the Member is then located, there is no way to change the status to Found (but I've never tried/tested this; this is just from some posts here on the Forum). But it's a good idea to burn these valuable Catalog files to optical media _before_ you use them with the current Retrospect version (just as it's a good idea to have good backups of any valuable data...).

 

Dave

[rhwalker]

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But it's a good idea to burn these valuable Catalog files to optical media _before_ you use them with the current Retrospect version (just as it's a good idea to have good backups of any valuable data...).

 

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Good reminder, Dave. We image all of our old computer drives before retiring them, so the retired (read-only) drive images are always there just in case. Looking back, it's hard to believe we used to run servers on just a few GB of disk storage.

 

Russ