recover space

[canam]

Ran into trouble backuping up too much and realize that my 100Gb Store-It drive is not enuf for the long run to have backups and jpeg file copies coexist.

 

So, I tried grooming down to 1 backup. Did not really free any space. Deleted backup sets and catalog(s) before seeing that maybe I should have gone thru the Restore menu to give back the space.

 

So, now can't use Restore menu and still large part of drive is marked as taken.

 

At this point I want to lose all the backup info and jst use the Store-It drive for jpeg (minus whatever space was taken by the Retrospect preloaded software).

 

Eventually I will need a bigger portable drive to really run scheduled backups. Retrospect did it's job well, I'm just trying to make the drive do double duty.

 

How to?

[eppinizer]

If you want to free up the space on your drive without formating it and losing the retrospect software, you should explore the drive by double clicking it in "my computer". The window that pops up should have a folder called retrospect. Click on retrospect, and then find your old backup-set. double click on this folder, and the next. You should now be seeing a bunch of files that are labeled something like "AA000000.RDB". These files are pieces of the information that you backed up with your old backup-set. If you no longer want them than you can just delete them.

 

If you don't want to lose the backup data you may want to try recreating your catalog file. If you are using retrospect express, go to Tools>Repair Catalog>Recreate from disks. If you are using Express HD, than it should try to automatically recreate the catalog file for you.

 

I don't understand how backing up the JPEG files separately from retrospect would save you any space. You might want to select only certain files to backup.

 

-Jeff

[Mayoff]

You should now be seeing a bunch of files that are labeled something like "AA000000.RDB". These files are pieces of the information that you backed up with your old backup-set. If you no longer want them than you can just delete them.

 

Do not delete these files if this set of Restore points contain information you need to keep. Deleting these files is basically the same as trashing the backup. We never recommend deleting random .rdb files. You either delete all of them from that folder or delete nothing.

[eppinizer]

You should now be seeing a bunch of files that are labeled something like "AA000000.RDB". These files are pieces of the information that you backed up with your old backup-set. If you no longer want them than you can just delete them.

 

 

 

Do not delete these files if this set of Restore points contain information you need to keep. Deleting these files is basically the same as trashing the backup. We never recommend deleting random .rdb files. You either delete all of them from that folder or delete nothing.

 

I'm sorry maybe I wasn't clear enough, I meant for him to delete all of them if he wanted to "lose all the backup info". I suppose deleting the folder is the same thing.

 

I then explained if he didn't want to lose all the info, and he has no catalog files, than a catalog rebuild would have to take place.

 

sorry for the confusion canam

[canam]

Thanks guys.

 

I could not "see" the .rbd files via the standard Windows XP folder opening options but I got down and dirty with the 'command prompt' window and DOS commands. Noted that pruning (or maybe something else I did) put most of the old backup files (.rbd) into a directory called "recycle". Being brave, I deleted everything in that directory and regained 51 Gb (as showing to Windows XP).

 

My problem was that I was squeezing Retrospect by taking 40 Gb of 100 Gb for uncompressed jpeg backups. Then Retrospect ran out of room trying to work with what was left. Painted myself into a corner and learned that backing up e-mails (as part of the scheduled backup) took a lot more space than I expected (think it kept saving the whole e-mail database file instead of just new e-mails). So my incremental backups were probably larger than I really needed.

 

Net learning experience was that it you are backing up a drive that already contains about 40 Gb, with incremental backups running 669K, need to go big with your backup drive or go home.