Creating backup set from previously burned CD's/DVD's

[harperstudios]

I saw a similar forum post on this topic, but the question wasn't answered. Hopefully someone can help me.

 

Here is my situation:

 

At my company, we just got Retrospect for Mac to start archiving our files to tape. We also have many, many burned DVD's and CD's that have many of our old jobs on them. What I want to do is to create a backup set on Retrospect of our old CD's and DVD's so all of our old files on those discs are searchable through Retrospect's restore function. I can't find any way to do this. The closest thing I can find is to click on the "Repair" function under "Tools", click on "Redbuild from CD/DVD discs". Then under the Media Selection window I want to click on my DVD/CD drive and the DVD in there (one of our old discs with old jobs on them) comes up as "Unknown" even though the title of the DVD is "DVD 363". I highlight it and click OK and then nothing happens.

 

Is this something that Retrospect can do? It seems like a very basic function, something that a program called "CD Finder" does okay for us, but we want the power of Retrospect's search. What am I to do?

[twickland]

It sounds like your data on the old CDs and DVDs is in a Finder readable format; in other words, it's not Retrospect data, right?

 

If that's so, you would need to copy all desired data from the various CDs/DVDs to a tape (or other suitably capacious) backup set in order be able to use Retrospect's search and restore functions. You would use each CD/DVD as a source for your backup, perhaps using some selection criteria to limit the number of files to ones that you really want to back up. This may not be so attractive a chore if you have a lot of source discs.

 

In short, Retrospect is not equipped to catalog files on a bunch of source discs/disks that Retrospect itself has not backed up.

[rhwalker]

harperstudios,

 

Because this is your first post, you may not be aware of some of the unique terminology (and technology) used by Retrospect.

 

Just to make twickland's (completely correct) post more clear, Retrospect has its own data format for its backup sets, and that format is not the same as a filesystem hierarchy usable by the Macintosh Finder. Retrospect also maintains a database (which is called the "catalog") of the contents of the Retrospect backup sets. You aren't starting from a Retrospect backup set, so you can't build a catalog that Retrospect can search.

 

Hope this helps, sorry it doesn't solve your problem.

 

Russ

[harperstudios]

That's not only disappointing, but surprising to hear.

 

I'm thinking about a work around that isn't perfect, but could work for what we need.

 

It basically goes like this:

 

Copy all the contents of your burnt DVD or CD to a volume of your choice and call that folder the same name of the CD or DVD. Then make a backup set also called the DVD or CD that has the files on it. Do the backup and keep the Retrospect catalog file only and throw away the archive file. Then you can search as you need in Retrospect and then pull out the old DVD or CD as needed.

 

There are drawbacks to this though. It's very time consuming to copy the contents of each DVD/CD, then archive it using Retrospect, but for those out there determined to use Retrospect for all their archive catalog needs regarding discs that are not burned using Retrospect, this is a way to do it.

 

This is a feature that really should be added with Retrospect X. I don't understand why this can't be done. Still, it will work well for our duplicate tape backups at least.

[CallMeDave]

throw away the archive file.

 

What a ridiculous (miss)use of the program.

 

If what you want is a catalog of the files that are on removable media such as CD/DVD, then use a media cataloging program. There are many good ones for OS X, some that existed back in the Classic Mac days.

 

For example, DiskCatalogMaker RE is part of the Toast Titanium suite of software. It will batch catalog disks for you, reading and then ejecting each in sequence. No user intervention other then feeding in the disks one after another is necessary. There is full searching available to find what you want, and as long as your naming/labeling is logical, it's simple to find what you're looking for.

 

Dave

(who couldn't find a more gentle way of saying it)