Relying on Product When Errors Occur

[pvsurfer]

Ok, this is my first post and I've only been using Retrospect 6.5 for 2-weeks. Before Retrospect, I used several other backup products, but none of them were capable of backing up my entire system including Windows XP (while running Windows), so I started looking for one that could do just that. Having read good reviews of Retropect, I downloaded the trial.

 

 

 

After several backup attempts, the one thing that really bothers me is that I can't seem to complete a backup without incurring errors! More often than not, the error is a 1020 (sharing violation), even though I've closed every program showing in my task-bar! One such example follows:

 

 

 

File "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Network\Downloader\qmgr1.dat": can't read, error -1020 (sharing violation)

 

 

 

So please understand when I ask... how can I rely on my backups if I'm getting errors?

[churchtown]

My heart sunk when I saw your posting;~/ It's dreadful that nobody has helped you on this matter in the timescale since your posting, not even a Dantz sysop... One has to wonder just how much assistance, and just how valuable, am I to exprect is going to be available herein.

 

I don't run XP. I specifically stopped feeding Bill's over-stuffed coffers at W2kPRO and all my workstations on my intranet were thus then sealed in aspic.

 

However I recognise the scenario from what I have seen on my own W2KPRO workstations (though only on Retrospect Professional v6.0) I believe you are seeing the Micro$oft OS automatic updater's online signature. This will cause an error if Retrospect tries to back it up actively. The prosaic workaround, solution even, is to use Retrospect's SELECTOR mechanism to filter both iterations out. AFAIK there is no earthly point in attempting to back them up (I have seen #1 and another #2, thus I filter with a ? character in SELECTORS). Quite why Retrospect don't get this done, at source without letting it bother the punters, is somewhat of a mystery to me.

 

IMHO this is not a specific cause to judge a product as being unreliable. The jury is out when it comes to considering the quality of forum feedback to which you really should be entitled:~/

 

Brief SELECTOR setup details:

Universal | Name | file folder both match pattern | qmgr?.dat | include enclosed folders

 

best wishes, Robert

[pvsurfer]

Thanks for the moral-support Robert. I guess that our expert moderators consider such questions rhetorical (or unworthy)...

 

 

 

I consider myself quite PC-literate and I do a good job of maintaining my system - nevertheless, after 17 backups - one/day since I installed Retrospect, none have been error-free (I have experienced sharing, permission and date/time errors)!

 

 

 

I don't believe that I should have to risk a complete system restore just to assure myself that the errors I'm experiencing are harmless!

[pvsurfer]

This thread doesn't seem to be attracting any interest, but from what I'm reading throughout this forum, it seems that Retrospect backup-errors of some kind or another are probably a fact of (cyber) life!

 

 

 

So with all of their knowledge on the subject, why can't Dantz incorporate green and red error-flags to indicate whether or not the particular error being reported is likely to result in a corrupt (or missing) file/folder if relied upon during a restore operation?

 

- 'snap out of it'

[rtcstudio]

Quote:

---

My heart sunk when I saw your posting;~/ It's dreadful that nobody has helped you on this matter in the timescale since your posting, not even a Dantz sysop... One has to wonder just how much assistance, and just how valuable, am I to exprect is going to be available herein.

 

 

best wishes, Robert

 

---

 

Unfortunately Mayoff, one of the administrators, has made it clear in another thread (one of yours Robert, the "anybody here?" thread) that no Dantz employee has to respond to us at all. I waited 8 days for a response which contained no possible solution. The response only asked me to run hours (and I'm talking literal days) of tests to see if something would happen.

 

If you want quick tech support, it has been made abundantly clear that you will have to pay for it.

[natew]

pvsurfer,

 

The Qmgr.dat file is used by windows automatic updates. It is in use at the time of the backup so it gives this sharing violation error. The good news is you can ignore errors on this file. In the event of a full system crash/restore it will automatically be recreated by the OS.

 

Whenever you get errors check the file name that caused the problem to decide the severity of the error. Retrospect just knows if it can't access a file or not, it does not know if that file is critical for a full system restore. The best things to do is to verify errors as they come up.

 

Thanks

Nate

[natew]

rcstudio,

 

We have not had this same problem at Dantz and we are not currently aware of any problems with file matching. The tests I suggested are to help narrow down the cause of the problem as it is most likely caused by another aplication on your system.

 

Nate

[churchtown]

pvsurfer

 

Without wishing to appear to be unduly rebellious, I have to say that my own problems with my required upgrade (minimum requirement to drive my NEC ND-2500a DVD-r burner) into RS6.5 have left me a little wary of a complete and utterly reliable emergency, or otherwise, restoration.

 

One should always have two strands - good, standard doctrinal, backup practice.

 

I deliberately maintain my booting C: drive (whatever) deliberately on a small partition - of the order of just 5 or 6GB. Using Norton's (aka Symantec) GHOST...

http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/

...I directly burn a DVD-r (using a just a couple of floppy discs) from boot.

 

It takes scant minutes - during a coffee break. Dead easy. No admin login worries. No messing about with Windows. Simplistically it is just a mechanical byte by byte copy of the partition to something similar on a DVD-r disc. No interpretation, no parsing, not much intelligence to be fair. It's just a dirt cheap copy of what you need to get out of a disaster. A life-saver.

 

OK, its user interface is not for the overly faint of heart, but it's not THAT techno-nerdy;~/ This is a straightforward DISASTER recovery. Nothing fancy. No single file recovery and all those nice hand-holding bells and whistles that Retrospect can and and certainly does give you... but at a cost.

 

I trust that this hearty user-recommendation, on the Dantz forum of an alternative product, is not taken overly badly and maintain that it should be considered in the context of a twin vectored backup philosophy - ie good backup practice.

 

best wishes, Robert

[pvsurfer]

Quote:

---

pvsurfer,

 

The Qmgr.dat file is used by windows automatic updates. It is in use at the time of the backup so it gives this sharing violation error. The good news is you can ignore errors on this file. In the event of a full system crash/restore it will automatically be recreated by the OS.

 

Whenever you get errors check the file name that caused the problem to decide the severity of the error. Retrospect just knows if it can't access a file or not, it does not know if that file is critical for a full system restore. The best things to do is to verify errors as they come up.

 

Thanks

Nate

 

---

Nate~ Thanks for the input and info, but the sharing errors reported are not always qmgr.dat (not to mention other types of reported errors). Therefore, I still maintain that my color-coded suggestion (above) would be a welcome enhancement.

[pvsurfer]

Robert~ With all due respect for your suggestion of a 'two stranded' backup approach, the reason I chose Retrospect was because it was (supposedly) capable of producing a full system backup (including OS). If I wanted to use Norton Ghost to image my OS, there would be little reason for my having chosen Retrospect over a multitude of other more user-friendly backup products. As I indicated above, I chose Retrospect simply because none of the other backup products could backup Windows (or open-files)!

- See my point?

~pv

[churchtown]

pvsurfer

 

Certainly DO see your point;~) And I commiserate with you entirely. It's a complex situation and we live in a world growing more and more complex. I am constantly changing my own POV to retain a sustainable level of simplicity. I've been plugging away at this sort of thing for too long and seen too many perturbations on the way, I guess I must be getting old...;~/

 

Can't comment on 'open files' because the RS aspect of this is tailored exclusively to working with XP, which is an OS step too far hereabouts. My (fully registered) W2KPRO-SP4 workstations are effectively sealed in aspic until they become unacceptably disfunctional... occurs to me that this is a lot like me really:-)

 

Dantz look like they may be going the way of the likes of Seagate/Veritas. They start with a good product, make it really excellent, and then a sea change of management and/or fashion drives them into a different vector. Prices rocket. Tech support becomes effectively unavailable to cash-strapped businesses or individuals. Ladders get pulled up and the old time customer-base is left behind slightly bewildered and puzzled. I used to be well in with them, did their beta's and other more inhouse stuff, but it all became too complex and marketing driven and I voted with my feet.

 

Perhaps it's an unfair comparison but these things happen. Retrospect used to be easily affordable and could ALWAYS be easily relied upon to do the biz. Nowadays I'm really not that sure about it any more. Things are getting too complex and expensive. The computing power I've just built for just myself makes what NASA used (to put men on the moon) look like a clockwork-driven abacus. Its sole justification was to use it to render the stills from a digital camera more in real time than sitting around twiddling my thumbs...

 

Dantz are implicitly a MAC company that has spread across platforms... never forget that. I used to publish books etc and ran with QuarkXPress, but on a PC platform. Despite getting pretty intimate with them, I was on their alpha testing focus group even and beta tested v4 right through and beyond production, but they went what is now a familiar way. Mind you they were NEVER cheap to start with... Their programme is nearly two grand a pop per workstation! I was always having to play 2nd fiddle to the MAC-flavoured thinking, keystrokes, methodology despite their avowed statements to the opposite...

 

RS does the job. How it does the job is up to your perception, actual testing prowess, and empiracal observational experience. It's MAC product doing a WinOS job and a mighty fine job it does too. But it's not, and probably never will be, a WinOS beast. Horses for courses. Your choice.

 

I use RS in general, I haven't yet made up my mind just how well, or badly, or is crippled by marketing-led, are the vectors that dictate how RS6.5 is going to perform. I'd like to think it will do the job. I am prepared to bank on it keeping my working data safe from day to day. I am not prepared to believe it will keep my entire workstation (OS included) absolutely and utterly safe from disaster. And I don't have the time to prove it or disprove it. Or the energy.

 

It's a question of percentages and costs. Against disasters I bank on GHOST. Against working file deletions and overwrites I bank on RS. The stuff in between is a mix of the two ie recover with the last GHOST and then a file by file recovery using the latest RS snapshot. I presume that is something akin to what the RS Disaster Recovery addon does, if you can afford or justify its purchase.

 

Computers (hardware and software) are monumentally complex nowadays and getting more so under the aegis of M$ and the tacit co-operation of the hardware manufacturers. The 'necesssary' upgrade cycles are industry self-driven and endless. New software needs more powerful kit, which then spawns more bloated software doing other necessary things that we apparently cannot live without... ad infinitum.

 

All of this is largely under the control of a single global corporation that needs to sell more and more boxes to survive and is driven by a man who apparently wants to dominate the entire globe. Actually I rather think the latter is a pretty much done thing. But there are some who have decided to take their destiny and wallets out of the endless upgrade cycle and take nominal control of what they want when they want and not at the rate of the suppliers' economic cycles.

 

In summary: your preference for a single all-encompassing product is not a particularly easy target to hit... at any budget. It's all TOO complex. I maintain that, for a disaster recovery solution, you couldn't do much better than have a cheap and cheerful GHOST image handy. And for day to day file recovery Retrospect. Sermon over and it's not even Sunday:-) G'night.

 

best wishes, Robert

[pvsurfer]

Robert, but my 'bottom-line' is that I'm actually beta-testing Retrospect to determine if my small company (running MS SBS) can or should rely on Retrospect (SBS Edition) in a mission-critical environment...

...and so far, I'm not yet convinced I can soley rely on Retrospect to fully protect my personal system!

[churchtown]

pvsurfer

 

Ouch;~/ You ARE in an invidious position. With that sort of a line up you are committed (nose to grindwheel) to M$ and all who are obliged, knowingly or unknowingly, to sail with them.

 

I am the sole proprietor of my own small business. For areas commonly regarded as 'mission critical' you MUST have a double vectored approach... there's no getting away from it. GHOST will span so I understand but I haven't tried it myself. It made more sense to me to adopt a methodology, from the start, to keep things restrained to the capacity of a single DVD-r session.

 

Veritas used to have a rattling good product but then they hiked their prices and support, I walked away.

 

Retrospect have (still?) a rattling good product, particularly with their unique snapshot principle incorporating benefits of both the incremental AND of the differential backup types. But they have been hiking their prices too, with a special and almost unseemingly overloading of the tariff for the small Linux-flavoured site.

 

I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of the GHOST strand as being one of the twin strands of site backup methodology.

 

To ascertain whether the Dantz product will do the biz for your site - on mission critical grounds - will require you to crash test a spare server. Anything less is not responsible. Plan it carefully:-)

 

best wishes, Robert