nikkilocke Posted January 20, 2004 Report Share Posted January 20, 2004 I have been using Retrospect 6.0.206 to backup to a set of three File Backup Sets all stored on a 40GB USB2 hard disk. Yesterday, I decided to upgrade the USB2 hard disk to 160GB. I removed the 40GB disk from the drive, and replaced it with a 160GB one. I put the 40GB drive in my main computer tower. I restarted Windows XP, and formatted the new 160GB drive as a single NTFS primary partition. I then copied (using Windows Explorer) all the files from the old 40GB drive to the new 160GB drive. I opened Retrospect, selected the Backup Sets option on the left, clicked the More button, and selected each of the copied backup sets on the USB2 disk. Checking the properties of my backup sets, they now showed as being on the new USB drive (G:). However, ever since then, trying to start a backup job in Restrospect causes the backup dialog to appear, with "Preparing to execute..." at the top. This stays like this for ever (or at least as long as my patience - over 10 minutes). Clicking the Stop button, and confirming that I really want it to stop, doesn't actually get rid of the dialog. The only way out is with Task Manager, or rebooting. Help!!!! [Later] I told Retrospect to "Forget" the backup sets, and then opened them again. I went to the backup job, and reassigned the backup sets to it. Everything then worked for 2 days, but it is back to "Preparing to execute..." again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted January 21, 2004 Report Share Posted January 21, 2004 Hi Have you tried turning off system restore on the external drives? My hunch is that will take care of this. Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikkilocke Posted January 26, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2004 Thanks. I'll try that, and see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikkilocke Posted January 27, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2004 Hooray! That seems to have worked (I had to wait until now to make sure my automatic backup fired OK). Thanks a million. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikkilocke Posted February 5, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2004 That made things work for a while, then it went wrong again. It seems that Windows XP is turning System Restore on again, apparently at random. The destination drive is a USB drive, which is normally not turned on. A time switch turns it on a little while before backup time. Is there a good reason why Retrospect will not backup to a file on a drive which has system restore on it? If not, is there a version which fixes this bug? Does anyone know how to convince XP to leave System Restore OFF on this external drive for all time, and prevent it sneakily turning it back on again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted February 6, 2004 Report Share Posted February 6, 2004 Hi System restore tries to monitor changes to a drive so you can undo them later. The problem is backup files are _huge_ so the system restore function chokes on them. Not to point fingers but it is not actually a Retrospect problem. System restore should stay off so I'm puzled as to why this is happening. Maybe your device is seen as a removeable disk by Windows XP? You can turn off system restore for the whole computer- that would fix it for sure. Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikkilocke Posted February 6, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2004 It IS a removable disk. Now it has got into a really strange state. The drive is turned on, and visible in Explorer, Disk Manager, and Device Manager. However, My Computer|Properties|System Restore shows the drive as "Offline". And Retrospect is hanging again It is particularly annoying as, once Retrospect gets into this state, there is no way of closing it down. Even terminating the RESTROSPECT.EXE process in Task Manager does not get rid of it. I have to shut down, then turn the machine off (as it fails to shut down properly). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted February 9, 2004 Report Share Posted February 9, 2004 Hi The offline status will do it. Usually that is caused by a driver problem or a hardware failure. You might want to talk to the drive manufacturer about the off line status. Remember removable disk means zip disk, DVD-RAM cartridge, Jaz disk etc. These devices use multiple pieces of storage media in one drive. I believe you have a hard disk in a case that is portable. In those cases it should be seen by the OS as a removeable hard drive. Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikkilocke Posted February 9, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2004 Now I'm confused. You say "Remember removable disk means zip disk, DVD-RAM cartridge, Jaz disk etc. These devices use multiple pieces of storage media in one drive. I believe you have a hard disk in a case that is portable. In those cases it should be seen by the OS as a removeable hard drive." Do you mean that there is some difference between a "removable disk" and a "removeable hard drive"? If so, how do I tell which kind of drive XP thinks this is? Or, if that's not what you meant, what did you mean? To try to anticipate any questions you may ask, this is the current state of play... I have a box containing an IDE hard drive, a power supply, and some electronics. The power supply is connected to the mains. The other connector is a USB cable, which is plugged into a USB2 card in my computer (not the motherboard USB connector, as that is USB 1). When the USB drive starts, it shows up as drive G: in My Computer. The Properties of Drive G: includes an AutoPlay tab, by which I assume it is recognised as a removable drive. On the Hardware tab, it shows as "WDC WD12 00BB-98DWA0 USB Device". The Properties from there show it as "Optimize for quick removal", and the Volumes tab (after I have clicked "Populate") show it as "Big Backup (G:) 114471MB, Type Basic, status Online, Partition style MBR . My Computer | Properties | System Restore currently shows "Big Backup (G:) as "Turned off". As it did yesterday. I turned the computer on as normal this morning. The power to the USB drive was (as usual) turned OFF. Looking in My Computer|Properties|System Restore did not show drive G: at all. At about 7 pm the USB drive power was turned on. At 7:30 Retrospect started automatically, to do a scheduled job involving a recycle backup to a file of drive G:. Retrospect hung (as is now usual). My Computer|Properties|System Restore showed System Restore against drive G: as "Monitoring"! Something about Retrospect starting up automatically to run a scheduled job seems to be turning on System Restore on that drive! Is it anything to do with the System user (which I think runs the Retrospect jobs) being different to the user who turned off System Restore on the drive (me, an Administrator)? Or is it just the usual madness of Bill's rubbish operating system? Any suggestions how I can Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted February 10, 2004 Report Share Posted February 10, 2004 Hi Can you read and write files to the G drive when it says "turned off"? After doing so does system restore turn back on? Any chance you can reformat the external drive as NTFS. The removeable drive question is a good one for the manufactuer of the drive. How it displays on the computer has everything to do with the drivers they wrote for it. Same goes for the system restore turning back on. Retrospect has no way of turning system restore off or on - there is something else going on here that is caused by your system or the drivers for the drive itself. I don't mean to send brush you off or anything, I'm just pretty certain the root cause of the problem is not in Retrospect. Nate Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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