Express 6.5 WD Dell complete restore logging off

[lindahardesty]

Objective is to move all data and settings from an 80gb SATA drive to 160gb SATA.

 

Specifics:

Retrospect Express 6.5

WD 250gb external contains the backups

Dell 8400

Windows XP home sp2, updated with all critical hotfixes

 

I made a full backup, switched drives, installed and updated WinXP Home. AT that point the drive boots perfectly. I install Retrospect. I restored my complete backup, which takes over an hour for 60 gb. I reboot.

 

It starts to boot normally, gets to the login screen. I login. I get the message that my personal settings are being retored (the usual whatever). Immediately, without pause or going to my desktop, the same screen says, "Logging out". That lasts a long time, then it goes back to the login screen. If I try logging in any number of times again, it does the same thing, except it doesn't take any extra time saying "Logging out".

 

I tried rebuilding the boot.ini, using the restore console and bootcfg /rebuild, to no effect.

 

I've tried this a number of times, using different backups. I would be glad to upgrade to the professional version, if that would help. I searched the forums and tried everything I could think of. There was at least one other user who described the cycling of immediate logging off. That question got no answer.

 

Please help if you can!

[lindahardesty]

OK, I seemed to have gotten this fixed, and learned a lot in the process. I have been answering other people's questions while I was waiting and experimenting, as it seems the EMC professional person who often posts here is on vacation or something. I have sprinkled in several suggestions for improving Retrospect 6.5 and HD express. I hope I didn't lead anyone astray.

 

The thing that fixed my problem was updating the original backup, and then restoring that. I was fortunate that I was simply trying to switch to a new hard drive, and not trying to recover from a crash. I also had the bright idea of doing a small backup and restore, which worked, and demonstrated that there was something wrong with my backed-up data, or the backup set. All users should do this as a test before they are faced with a crash. Pretend you are switching hard drives. Get a small, cheap hd. Backup a minimal amount of your data, but be sure to include a few applications, and your OS recovery information - I think this is just what a "normal" backup does. Create the disaster recovery disk. Then install the new drive as drive c: and try to restore your system to it.

 

What I found when I did this was that the disaster recovery disk didn't work. Because I had to do so many time-consuming fresh installs of Windows, I taught myself how and created a "slip-stream" Windows XP install disk. This is a very worthwhile thing to have. If you get all the setting rights, you can reinstall Windows XP roughly as you had it, with your up-to-date hotfixes and validation codes, and it will install without your having to sit there and press enter every 15 minutes. Be sure to have your Retrospect installer on there, too.

 

Of course, buying a new hard drive just for this sort of test is expensive, and the whole process is a huge hassle. But you don't really have security with your backups unless you know you can restore them.

 

One more suggestion I would make to EMC, is that, if someone posts here, and doesn't get a workable answer, offer them one free technical support issue bundled with their upgrade to the full version. I think that would be a win-win proposition. Since the user would feel confident that he would get professional help to get his issues resolved, he would be more willing to spend the money on the upgrade. And perhaps just getting the upgrade will solve the problem in most cases.

 

It does seem to me that ver 6.5 has some bugs.