Hang + Kernel Error when configuring drive

[EWTHeckman]

I just installed Retrospect 6.1 on my new computer. (I had been using 5.1 under Mac OS 9, but a new 10.4 machine required an update.) Since I'm still waiting on a SCSI card to arrive so I can use the tape backup, I decided to use an external DVD burner to do a backup. Unfortunately, Retrospect locked up on me every time I tried to "Configure" the drive.

 

It would ask me for a DVD to use, then the "Checking write method…" dialog would appear. The drive activity light would flash for a while then it would stop. The Retrospect "tape wheels" busy cursor would be displayed for a while, then it would change to the spinning pizza of death. When this happens, Retrospect's dock menu would say that the application isn't responding. Just to make sure, I did try leaving it running for half an hour with no change.

 

This happened 4 times. (I had tried deleting preferences and the .rdi files a couple of times just to be sure.) On my last two attempts, force quitting Retrospect caused a kernel error.

 

This drive worked perfectly with Retrospect for Windows.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

 

 

Configuration data:

 

Retrospect 6.1.126

RDU 6.1.6.100

Mac OS 10.4.7

PowerMac G5 Quad 2.5

RAM: 4.5 GB

External Drive: LaCie d2 16x DVD-RW w/ Lightscribe (TSSTcorp SH-W162L w/ LC00/MMC-3 firmware)

 

 

(Yes, I know the internal drive on my machine is also a 16x drive. It's just easier to reach the drive on top of my desk than the one underneath.)

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

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I know the internal drive on my machine is also a 16x drive. It's just easier to reach the drive on top of my desk than the one underneath.

 

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- One obvious question is, what happens without the LaCie connected, and writing to the Apple supplied internal drive?

[EWTHeckman]

I just told Retrospect to ignore the LaCie and did the backup to the internal drive with no problems. It wasn't necessary to disconnect the LaCie.

[brantwinter]

Hi - did you ever get a fix for this ? I am using a Sony-DRU710A external drive and I am getting exactly the same issues, spinning pizza of death, and then kernal panic. I don't really want to be using my internal DVD drive for backups as I want the external DVD RW to be utilised for this.

[EWTHeckman]

No I haven't.

 

I did send feedback using the form on their website reporting this as a bug. I also included the logs from the kernel panics. You might want to do the same so they know it's not just an isolated problem and to give them more info they can use to track it down.

[brantwinter]

I don;t know how to grab the kernam panic files - is there any other mac osx backup product that works - I wasted 10 DVD-RWs trying to get that damm drive working.

[EWTHeckman]

Here's how to access the log:

 

Find the Utilities folder in your Application folder. Inside that folder you'll find an application named "Console". Open it.

 

In the upper left of the window you'll see an icon labelled "Logs". Click on it to open a list of various logs on the left side of the window.

 

Click the triangle next to "/Library/Logs" to display the logs for the overall system. (Note: This is not the "~/Library/Logs" section. Those are logs which apply just to your user account.)

 

Click on "panic.log" to see the logs from kernel panics. Since this is really just a text file, there could be more than one kernel panic listed. Each log entry is separated from the others by a series of asterisks. (*********) Just look for the one(s) with the appropriate date and time. You can copy and paste the appropriate log info into your message to EMC. (It's just like selecting and copying in any word processor.)

 

I don't have any suggestions for other backup software for the Mac. Toast is capable of spanning stuff across DVD's, so it could be used as a "backup lite" substitution. But it can't do things like backing up the entire system, including system files, or backing up only what has changed since the last backup. You would be better off gritting your teeth and using the internal drive like I did.

 

The DVD backup was just temporary until a SCSI card arrived so I could backup to tape. (I'm currently using DDS-4, but I'm hoping to move to AIT-4 in the near future.)