btt Posted July 5, 2006 Report Share Posted July 5, 2006 Hello everyone, We are backing up to a Sony StorStation 520C tape drive using the Firewire interface. The host computer is a Dual 800 PPC G4, 1.5 GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.7 We're running Retrospect 6.1.126 w/ Driver Update 6.1.6.100 The symptoms are that after a while of backing up, the Mac will lock up. Only a hard reboot can recover, sometimes resulting in a corrupt backup catalog. We've tested the RAM using memtest's extensive testing procedure. We're not sure what to do next, short of trying to get a replacement drive. The mac is dedicated to Retrospect, and the OS install is pretty fresh, so there is nothing else running on the machine while it backs up. If anyone knows of another troubleshooting method that we haven't tried, we would greatly appreciate some insight. Best wishes, Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallMeDave Posted July 5, 2006 Report Share Posted July 5, 2006 > The symptoms are that after a while of backing up, the Mac will lock up. How hard? - Does the mouse move? - Does the clock advance? - Can you ping the machine via ssh from another computer on the LAN? > Only a hard reboot can recover What else have you tried that was not successful? - Have you pulled the FireWire cable from the computer? - If you can log in via ssh, can you kill any of the machine's running apps? There is no way to thoroughly test 1.5 GB or ram. Sure, you can run tests, but it would take many years non-stop to touch every aspect of the memory. If you suspect the tape drive, I'd suggest trying to use it on a different physical Macintosh. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted July 5, 2006 Report Share Posted July 5, 2006 Any other firewire devices? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btt Posted July 7, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2006 Dave... thanks for the reply. We have put the tape drive on an older Mac G4 Single 866. Unfortunately I don't have those specs in front of me, as I'm away from the location. I was told today that the tape drive and retrospect have been working great so far, with even better speeds than we were getting on the former host machine. While its great to be backing up again, we'd like to get the old machine back in service because it is more up-to-date. Once we get a couple of good backups, I'll put the old machine back in service and see what happens. I'll try to answer some of your questions below: >> The symptoms are that after a while of backing up, the Mac will lock up. | How hard? | - Does the mouse move? | - Does the clock advance? | - Can you ping the machine via ssh from another computer on the LAN? The mouse pointer is in "Retrospect Gears mode" and is frozen. Not sure about the clock, or ping/ssh, but will keep that in mind to try next time. > Only a hard reboot can recover | What else have you tried that was not successful? | - Have you pulled the FireWire cable from the computer? | - If you can log in via ssh, can you kill any of the machine's running apps? I haven't tried either of these, but will definitely keep them in mind for next time. | There is no way to thoroughly test 1.5 GB or ram. I understand what you mean about testing the memory. We tried to test it as throughly as possible, but I agree about not being able to test it 100%. Thanks again, Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btt Posted July 7, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2006 Hi rhwalker, > Any other firewire devices? Nope... the tape drive is the only one. The internal DVD drive appears in Retrospect's "Configure Devices" list, but we don't have any backup sets that reference iit. Thanks, Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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