Problem Performing Recycle Backup

[dickmanikowski]

This gets complicated, but bear with me.

 

With the help of EMC support staff, I created a script (let's call that SCRIPT A) on 8/24 to do a recycle backup to a backup set stored on an external drive. I scheduled that script to repeat each FR.

 

I also created a second script (call it SCRIPT to do a normal backup to that same backup set stored on the external drive. I scheduled that script to repeat every day except FR.

 

For the first week, things ran fine. Log showed a recycle backup ran successfully that FR and backed up ~190,000 files. Every night after that through the following TH, a normal backup ran successfully and backed up a substantially smaller number of files (as should be expected).

 

On the second FR, log showed that a recycle backup ran successfully again . . . but this time it only backed up ~16,000 files.

 

On the third FR, log showed a successful recycle backup totalling 745 files.

 

I've certainly got way more than 745 files on the XP Pro system, so this was highly disturbing.

 

This morning, I think I figured out what the problem may be. Looking closely, I see that, after writing SCRIPT A and having it do the initial recycle backup, I replaced it with SCRIPT C (for reasons I don't remember). SCRIPT C had the same parameters that SCRIPT A had, but I'm guessing that, because because the backup set contained backups performed by SCRIPT A, SCRIPT B, and SCRIPT C, the archive bits (or whatever) that had been set when SCRIPT A ran couldn't be reset when SCRIPT C ran.

 

What I think I need to do is to:

* forget the current backup set in order to clear out the mess I've made

* create a new backup set

* forget the two surviving scripts (SCRIPT B for normal backups and SCRIPT C for weekly recycle backups)

* create a new script to run a recycle backup tonight (MON) using the new backup set and repeat it each week

* create a new script to run a normal backup every night EXCEPT MON using the new backup set and repeat it each week

* NOT SCREW AROUND WITH THE SCRIPTS ONCE THEY'RE WORKING

 

I'm just doing a reality check here on two questions:

* does my theory of what I did wrong (replace SCRIPT A with SCRIPT C) make sense?

* does my plan for straightening out the situation make sense?

 

I'd really apreciate input from users who understand Retrospect better than I do.

 

Thanks.