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Waiting for Media -- But it is there !!


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I'm running the most current version of Professional on W2k (fully patched). I use three Plextor 708A DVD drives that I just moved from the IDE controller to a SIIG PCI controller card.

 

I'm trying to recreate my DVD catalog. The Retrospect media window pops up and asks for DVD X and I put it into the drive. The Retrospect media window shows that DVD X is in the drive and ready, but at the top of the window it still shows waiting for DVD X. It reports that the requested media is loaded and ready, but at the same time does not recognize it is there. The main window continues to wait for media.

 

How do I get Retrospect to recognzie the media and continue ?

 

Thanks, Rich

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Problem improved after I deleted the catalog and started the recatalog over. Now Retrospect sees the DVD and uses it. But then even though it recognizes the next DVD needed is in another drive, will not go on to recatalog the next DVD until I hit the return key. This kills the automation value of having three DVD drives.

 

 

 

Sigh.

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Hi, I'm using fully patched Windows 2000. I note that the new driver announcement includes a fix where Retrospect is looking for a new member of a tape backup and asks for the member prematurely (I guess this means before it has finished looking to see if it is available). This is kind of like my problem, except I'm using multiple DVD drives, not a tape carousel.

 

If Retrospect would first look to see if the next DVD is already available on one of the drives before it asks for it, that would fix my problem.

 

Do you think NT passthrough will do this?

 

Thanks, Rich

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Hi, I stopped the recatalog and updated the driver as you suggested. I restared Retrospect and the recatalog activity. Now I am back where I was at the beginning. Retrosepct is reqeusting a DVD that is already loaded into one of the drives. The device window shows the DVD as loaded into the drive, but still says load the media. The status window just sits there blinking "waiting for media". The correct media is already in a drive and ready to use, Restropect reports that it is there correctly but will not use it.

 

I opened and closed the drive drawer so the media would unload and reload. This happened, but Retrospect is still behaving like I descrived just above. The way I worked around this error as described earlier in this thread was to start the recatalog over from the beginning. I will do that now (although this means I loose 5 disks worth of recatalog time, about 10 hours)

 

Ok I restarted, but the new driver had no effect on the problem. Retrospect behaves just like before. When you start a recatalog from the beginning, it asks for every DVD before it looks to see if it is there. However, it does see the disk once you hit the return key (unlike when you try to resume a recatalog effort and it just keeps asking without seeing). The automation value of having three drives is still wasted and recataloging 40 DVDs is very slow.

 

Rich

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I've not followed this thread. Have you tried the following.

 

1. Remove the DVD.

2. Reboot.

3. Start Retrospect, do not insert the DVD.

4. Verify that Retrospect is identifying the DVD drive.

5. Now, insert the DVD.

 

If the above works, then I guess you are running a conflict because some DVD recording software is latching onto the drive before Retrospect gets a chance.

 

If not, it was worth a shot (in the dark).

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If the default option "Fast catalog rebuild" was enabled on the set you may not need to recatalog from scratch. Go to Tools > Repair Catalog > Recreate from CD/DVD discs and, when prompted for the media insert the last disc in the set.

 

If the set was created with Retrospect 6.0 or 6.5 this should work for you. Retrospect will store a copy of the current catalog on the beginning of each member of the backup set, starting with member 2.

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Hi Howard, Please read the thread, your suggestions do not appear relevant to the problem.

 

Hi Amy J, Unfortunately, I do need to recatalog from scratch. Do you have any suggestions how to get Retrospect to look at the available DVDs before asking for one that is already available? The problem described above.

 

Thanks, Rich

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Hi All, I just finished talking with Retrospect Technical support. The tell me that Retrospect always puts up a dialog box first to talk to the user before it looks to see that what is needed is already available. "Retrospect is not designed to work with multiple DVD drives, it assumes there is only one DVD drive in a machine".

 

Rich cryrub.gif

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Hi All, I just finished talking with Retrospect Technical support. The tell me that Retrospect always puts up a dialog box first to talk to the user before it looks to see whether what is needed is already available. "Retrospect is not designed to work with multiple DVD drives, it assumes there is only one DVD drive in a machine".

 

Rich cryrub.gif

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I just read your post a little more clearly... You're looking for a way to essentially automate a catalog rebuild. The short answer is that it's not possible. A catalog rebuild is considered a manual operation and will always require you to select the next member and click okay to proceed.

 

There are a few reasons for this:

 

- A new catalog does not have any knowledge of how many members are to come in the rebuild process. There could be one, or there could be one hundred. After rebuilding each member, Retrospect will ask the user, "Are there any more members?" This dialog box must be answered "yes" or "no" in order to proceed. This requires manual intervention - to select "yes" and to then indicate which member is the next member.

 

- It is possible to have multiple members with the same name (belonging to different backup sets). A new catalog will accept any "2-Backup Set A" as the second member - even if it came from a different backup set. The user has to select which piece of media to continue with.

 

Granted, there could be an argument that the user should be able to run it unattended --"Buyer Beware" if media from a wrong set is used accidentally because the name matches, or if it added 10 members to a set that originally had only 1. However, Retrospect was designed to operate in ways that protect users from mistakes as much as possible. Default options and settings are designed to prevent data loss, and accidental 'wrong turns.' If you feel that running recatalog operations unattended is a feature you'd like to see in a future release of the program, submit your request to the Product Suggestions forum. Obviously we can't implement every request from every customer, but we do listen to our users and use their suggestions constructively.

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Quote:

Hi

 

What Retrospect version and OS is this? Make sure you manually select NT passthrough in the hidden preferences. To open them type CTRL + ALT + P +P at any window in Retrospect.

 

Nate

 


 

Is there a list of such retrospect key codes?

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> A catalog rebuild is considered a manual operation and will always require you to select the next member and click okay to proceed.

 

 

 

I know you were speaking about this specific multi-device (CD/DVD) backup. But this statement should *not* apply to a harddisk based (dest) backup, esp. for File backups which is pretty much all I run these days (even Disk backups have some annoying limitations, e.g. the inability to specify subdirectories).

 

 

 

 

 

> If you feel that running recatalog operations unattended is a feature you'd like to see in a future release of the program, submit your request to the Product Suggestions forum.

 

 

 

Already did, 02/18/04:

 

 

 

php?Cat=0&Board=Windowssuggestions&Number=37560&Forum=,All_Forums,&Words=catalog&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=37538&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=1560&daterange=1&newerval=1&newertype=y&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post37560

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Hi, Thank you all for trying to help.

 

AmyJ wrote: "A catalog rebuild is considered a manual operation and will always require you to select the next member and click okay to proceed." She then gave some reasons why this was so.

 

Except it is not entirely so. When using multiple CD/DVD drives for the re-catalog, Retrospect does not give you a choice of which drive or media to use next. It only asks if one of the drives is loaded with the next DVD named "XXX" that it wants to use (something it could plainly see for itself). Once you say "OK" Retrospect goes and finds the drive with the needed DVD all by itself, you do not "select" it.

 

Perhaps if you do as AmyJ therorized and 1) use the same name for multiple Backup Sets thereby generating multiple pieces of media with different content but the same name and 2) put the same media name from two Backup Sets into two drives at the same time, then I suppose Retrospect may give another dialog box for you to make a choice.

 

Since I use different names for each Backup Set and thus my media is unique, Retrospect realizes that it doesn't need me to make a choice and so no selection dialog box.

 

Rich

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  • 1 month later...

Just to give folks the answer on this problem. Dantz says it is a bug in Retrospect. When doing a catalog rebuild using DVDs and when a file being backed up spans across DVD volumes and when the second DVD has a read error. Then when you say skip the DVD with the read error and go onto the next DVD, Retrospect hangs waiting for media that is actually there in the drive. So you have to also skip the next good DVD in order to proceed with the recatalog.

 

Sigh

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