Moving drive to another machine

[panicboy]

I have a firewire hard disk which I used to have connected to my computer which runs Retrospect Desktop 5. I moved the drive to another computer as most of the work on that drive is done on that machine.

 

 

 

I have a backup set which just backs up that drive, and currently there's about 45gb of data on it. The other computer has the client software on it and it all shows up correctly, however i can't seem to get Retrospect to recognise that it's the same drive, i.e. it wants to start backing up all 45gb from scratch. I just want it to keep appending to the existing data on the tapes.

 

 

 

Is there a way to do this? The drive is still called the same thing, it's just attached to a different Mac now.

 

 

 

Thanks!

[Guest]

It sounds like the operating system on the new computer may be seeing the files differently, and thus Retropect wants to back them up again. Here's some background:

 

 

 

Retrospect uses several matching criteria to compare files that have already been backed up to what is about to be backed up. If one of the following has been changed at all, Retrospect will back up the file again: name, size, type, creator, creation date and time, modify date and time, and label.

 

 

 

If Retrospect is reporting that it is about to back up files you know have not changed since your last backup, take a closer look at a sample file. Choose a file and start a restore by search for that file. When you get to the final window (you don't actually have to do the restore), click Files Chosen and Get Info (type Command-I) on the most recent version of the file on the backup. Print or take a screenshot of this window.

 

 

 

Now, go to the Configure tab from the Retrospect Directory and click Volumes. Choose the volume the file is on and click Browse. Find the file in question and Get Info on it. Put the two windows side by side and look for even the slightest difference in any of the criteria I listed above.

 

 

 

Many things can cause a change in a file, even if the file has not been accessed by the user. The operating system, as well as applications, are constantly making changes to files. Further, whenever you change time zones in the Date & Time control panel, your creation and modify dates are offset. We have also found an issue in Mac OS 8.1 with HFS+ formatted volumes where changing the Daylight Savings Time setting offsets the creation and modify dates of all files.

 

 

 

There is also an issue where AppleShare might make a time translation when connecting to another machine whose time is off by more than a certain number of minutes. This time translation would also offset the creation and modify dates of all files. I have also seen this happen when upgrading operating systems or doing a complete restore of data with Retrospect.

 

 

 

Unfortunately the only known way around this problem is to do a full backup of your data. I know of no way to force file attributes to regress to the way they were before. Either do a full backup or use this time to introduce new media.