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Only part of backup file restores?


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Hi,

 

When I perform a Retrospect Express 5.0 restore -- whether "Restore an entire disk" or "Restore files from a backup" -- the result is a restoration of only some of the files. Many of the rest of the files are missing. And some of the files that were restored, including my Outlook and Netscape files, are versions that are months older than the date of the backup set snapshot.

 

The backup set file supposedly has 187,631 files making up 24.7 GB, but when I actually do the backup, only 41,728 files making up 6.2 GB are available to be restored. Don't I need all 187,000+ files to be restored so that I'll get ALL my files, including the latest-and-greatest ones?

 

I'd be much appreciative of any advice regarding how to resolve this issue.

 

Thanks!

 

David

 

 

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Very odd indeed.

 

If your system has enough memory, and you have more then a few minutes, try "Search for files and folders" instead. Look for one of the files you believe should be more recent then what was previously restored. Let us know if you find one of a later date in the backup set using this method.

 

/d

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indeed, very discouraging. At this point either there is bug in the product, operator error ( wrong sub/volume etc ), or your missing files met whatever exclusion filter you had selected for the backup (i would call this a major bug). Do you have your retrospect log file still? If not, do you remember what filters you applied to the backup set?

 

I've personally seen retrospect blow past a file when it "thought" it met the "Cache Files" exclusion criteria/filter... Needless to say, I was a tad mift... but I haven't encountered a time when it skipped a file on a new backup sans exclusion filters.

 

Note, I don't do incremental backups, just full ones. My laptop data is encrypted on disk copy mountable images for my sanity. Since Express lacks any reasonable encryption methods, I simply backup the big disk images, not the files on them. Clearly this is not workable in an incremental backup scenario.

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I don't have the log file, but there was no exclusion filter in use.

 

The only other possible explanation I can think of is that the backup was only partially completed, and I somehow missed an error message stating that the backup wasn't completed successfully. But I doubt that happened.

 

Anyway, I had backed up the most critical files manually, so I was able to copy them back to my hard drive. But I had not backed up my Outlook Express inbox, which was pretty well-hidden. Now, of course, I manually back up that file in addition to the other important files. I probably will stop using Retrospect.

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Hi

 

This is a file backup set right? Go into the settings for the backup set and manually separate the catalog file from the datafile. Then go to tools and try a catalog rebuild.

Did you create this backup set under Retrospect 4.x?

 

Thanks

Nate

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Hi

 

 

 

How about doing a search for files restore but leaving the search criteria field blank? then use the browser search function to find the files you are after.

 

 

 

How recently was this backup set recycled? Could the files have been renamed and saved elsewhere?

 

 

 

Nate

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Nate,

 

I tried the search without using search criteria. It resulted in the restoration of a LOT of files (which took more than three hours!). But the missing files were still missing. I don't believe any of the files was moved or saved differently -- I think they just weren't backed up. As for the recycling of backup sets, a new backup set was created every time I did a backup.

 

Anyway, the backup from late May worked, so I only lost e-mail for three months, which wasn't that much. Everything else important had been backed up separately.

 

David

 

 

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