Duplicating not working properly on Leopard?

[ionblue]

I recently upgraded to Leopard (10.5.1) and also upgraded Retrospect to 6.1.38. Actually, everything was a clean install, just so you know. I was going to try Time Machine, but after reading the Apple forums, I figured Retrospect was still the best option for me. All I'm doing is duplicating my User drive (the boot drive with applications is separate) 3 times a week to an external FW800 drive just to have an emergency recovery drive if needed. I archive files manually to DVD when appropriate.

 

This was working great in 10.4.x without any strange behavior, but now if I set my source as "User HD", destination as "User HD Backup" with "Replace entire disk" selected, Retrospect totally ignores the files that are present on the backup, deletes EVERYTHING, and duplicates the entire disk again. I know this is happening because I happened to be on my G5 when it did 2 of the operations and I saw what was going on.

 

According to the manual this shouldn't be happening:

 

"Replace Entire Disk deletes all files and folders on the destination which do not match those marked for duplication, leaving files untouched if they are identical to files marked. It then duplicates remaining files and folders from the source, preserving the folder hierarchy."

 

So, I've temporarily switched to "Replace Corresponding Files", but if memory serves me correctly, this ends up NOT deleting files off the destination drive that are no longer present on the source. This is something I don't want to happen.

 

I'm totally confused as to what the heck is going on here. Is Leopard doing something really odd to the files to make Retrospect think that everything changed and hence deletes them? Or is the client going batty? Do I have the wrong client version (it says 6.1.13.101)?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Anthony C.

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

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Do I have the wrong client version (it says 6.1.13.101)?

 

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How is Retrospect OS X Client software being used here?

[ionblue]

Not sure I understand the question, but I have Retrospect (not express) installed on and running on a G5 to backup the User drive. I have 2 internal drives, Boot and User, with all the user data on the User drive. I have it setup to duplicate 3 times a week to an external LaCie drive. I don't really have a need to have backup sets at this point, as I archive things to DVD when needed and also the backup is mainly for disaster recovery. I've had several drives go bad on me over the years, so I try to keep fresh copies of data for that purpose.

 

Does this answer your question?

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

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Does this answer your question?

 

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Actually it answers your questions "is the client going batty?" and "Do I have the wrong client version"

 

If you are only attempting to manage data on a single computer (the same computer that is running the Retrospect application) then there is no need to install Retrospect Client software.

 

Since Retrospect will delete any exiting file that it sees as different, you should compare the file(s) on your Source volume with the file(s) on your Destination volume.

 

- Immediate Duplicate

- Select Source and Destination volumes

- Click "Files Chosen"

- The resulting Browser window shows files on your Source. Move window to the side

 

- Configure Volumes

- Select your Destination volume

- Click "Browse:

- The resulting Browser windows shows files on your Destination.

 

- Find a file in the Source Browser that matches a file in your Destination Browser, and use Retrospect's "Get Info" command on each. Look at each attribute, and see if there is a difference in any of them.

[ionblue]

I can say that I didn't install any client software separately, just the normal install/update and was just reporting what the "About" screen stated as to the versions.

 

I'll try an immediate Duplicate and see what it shows, but even with this, it doesn't answer or solve the problem. The duplicate action worked perfectly in 10.4.x and it never deleted all the contents of my backup drive before starting the duplicate. There is no reason why some 80GB of data on a drive would have have ALL changed twice in the span of 3 days. I certainly don't make a habit of randomly changing file attributes just for the heck of it.

 

At any rate I'll see if I can figure it out and if not, I'll just switch to CCC and script that or something.

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

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if I set my source as "User HD", destination as "User HD Backup" with "Replace entire disk" selected, Retrospect totally ignores the files that are present on the backup, deletes EVERYTHING, and duplicates the entire disk again.

 

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This is discussed in the ReadMe (Read Me-Retrospect.htm) that comes with Retrospect. It states:

 

 

Any time you copy a file with extended attributes or ACLs to a volume (for example during a restore or duplicate operation), the volume incorrectly sets the attribute modification date to the current date and time. This means that Retrospect will copy all files with extended attributes or ACLs during the first backup after a restore and during every duplicate operation, since the attribute modification dates will no longer match. Apple has been notified of this issue and is working to resolve it.

 

 

 

So the solution is to disable the "Use attribute modification date when matching" option for your Dupliate.

[ProfN]

In January, Dave said:

. . . . Apple has been notified of this issue and is working to resolve it. So the solution is to disable the "Use attribute modification date when matching" option for your Dupliate.

• Has the issue been fixed by Apple in the Leopard software updates since Jan. 14?

 

• If not, what might be the downsides--if any--of disabling that option when using Retrospect 6.1.138 in duplicating a volume with the PPC version of OS 10.5.2?

 

Respectfully, Norm