Moving backup files to larger drive

[orubin]

(my apologies if in the wrong place or already covered. I did a search, but did not find an answer.)

I have Retrospect 7.0.249 Multiserver running under Windows XP.

 

I want to replace two 500 GB USB drives currently in use as Retrospect backup sets with one 1.5 TB USB drive, to store the many backup sets for many different backups now on two drives. (Catalogs are saved on C drive.)

 

I thought ( I was hoping) I could just copy all the existing backup set folders to the new drive, remove the old drives, and then use Tools to point to the new location of the backup files.

 

I tried running verify media after I did this, and as expected, Retrospect immediately asks for the first backup set member. I say Find, and use BROWSE, go to the place where I copied the backup sets to (inside a folder called RETROSPECT at the root, just like the old drive) and browse does not show ANY backup set as being selectable, and in fact, do not show at all. So I was wrong, this does not work. Or I have no idea how to make it work properly. All the data is there, just in a different location and Retrospect seems very unhappy about that.

 

So, is there a simple way I can do this, or am I just screwed and have to set each backup to run new again and start over (I do not want to do that as I would like to not loose the history on the old drives, which I would like to redeploy elsewhere.)

 

So, can someone explain to me how I might accomplish this? I am obviously missing something.

 

Thanks in advance.

Owen Rubin :confused2:

Edited April 24, 2009 by Guest

[orubin]

Well, I may have found my own answer, but still wonder if something else would work.

 

I decided to simply Recreate catalog from disk and replace the old catalog with the newly created one. Since the backup set is intact (hopefully) everything should be fine after a rather long rebuild session.

 

Was this the right way to do this?

[Lennart_T]

I thought ( I was hoping) I could just copy all the existing backup set folders to the new drive, remove the old drives, and then use Tools to point to the new location of the backup files.

That's what I did a while ago with no problems.

Can tell us EXACTLY what you did?

[orubin]

I thought ( I was hoping) I could just copy all the existing backup set folders to the new drive' date=' remove the old drives, and then use Tools to point to the new location of the backup files.

[/quote']

That's what I did a while ago with no problems.

Can tell us EXACTLY what you did?

Ok, I did the following:

1). Stop all scripts and let then ones running finish. Quit Retrospect.

2). Plug in new 1.5TB USB drive

3). Copy Retrospect folders from two old USB drives into one folder called Retrospect on new drive.

4). "Eject" and unplug two old drives.

5). Relaunch Retrospect

 

Here, I tried two things.

First try:

1). Went to Configure -> Backup Sets

2). Selected one of the moved sets, and said properties

3). Went to MEMBERS, and clicked on the existing member, and said Properties again.

4). Where it says "Location for backup data folder" I clicked BROWSE, and TRIED to select the new location.

This did not work.

 

Second Try:

1). Launched a script

2). It fails, asking for the data set member.

3). Press choices

4). Click browse to find data set

5). Browse to new location.

 

This also did not work, as the new location was not selectable as a target.

 

OK, those to methods failed. I have succeeded in getting a few to work by using Tools -> Repair Catalog and rebuilding and replacing the catalog, but because these are 100's of GBs each, it is taking all night to rebuild one of them.

 

What did you do?

 

Thanks,

-Owen-

Edited April 24, 2009 by Guest
typo correction

[orubin]

Two additional question:

1). Did you name the new drive the same as the old? In my case, one drive is replacing two, so this is not possible.

2). What exactly does that "Dantz" file that is created but has size 0 do in each Retrospect folder? Obviously, again, merging into one file, I cannot copy both files to the one folder. But it seems to be completely empty and have no contents. Is the lack of this file the problem?

[stavroska]

Lennart, I think the crucial question to ask is:

 

Owen.

 

what type of backup sets are you using?

File or disk?

From your answer the member mention is intriguing.

 

 

[orubin]

They are all "Disk" backup sets.

 

FYI: re-catalog, forgetting the original catalog and replacing it with the new one pointed at the new backup set folde rhas worked successfully, and now the snapshots and contents show correctly again, pointing to the proper drive.

 

I still have several sets to go, but will run those this evening, so I should be done by tomorrow.

 

Just want to know for future reference.

 

Thanks,

-Owen-

[orubin]

One more thing I discovered doing the re-catalog: Even though I "replaced" the existing catalog with a re-catalog of the same name, Retrospect removes the destination set pointer from any scripts that used that catalog. So my scripts started failing with no target specified, but that was easy to repair.

[MajorHavoc]

Ok, I know this is 11 years old, but this week, I wanted to move existing backup sets from a drive that is full, to one that has twice as much space. I could not think of how to do that, so I searched it. First hit was this article. BUT, as I was reading it, I was thinking this might help me, and got to the second to last article, and see my name. Hey, wait a minute, I write most of this. Too funny!

[orubin]

Oh yea, that is me above. I forgot all about the original login. DOH!