wscott44 Posted April 20, 2004 Report Share Posted April 20, 2004 Hi Folks: I am running Retrospect Pro 6.5.343 on Windows 2000, and trying to configure a Windows 98 client for disaster recovery. This product includes a primary license and two for clients. However, only the primary can create a disaster recovery CD. When I go into the "Prepare for Disaster Recovery Wizard" and try to prepare the client, I am prompted to enter an appropriate license code or to Purchase one. I feel like I am looking at false advertising or a mild form of "bait and switch" or UP-selling. If I don't purchase this additional license and cannot create a Disaster Recovery CD, is a client disaster recovery a lengthy and complex process? I am feeling a bit irritated about this right now. Thank you, Wayne Scott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted April 22, 2004 Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 Hi Client disaster recovery requires the Disaster recovery option for Retrospect server editions. Since you only have two client machines to worry about you may find it easier to do the standard client recovery anyway. A few pointers for doing this on win 98: Make sure you have a CD that has your chipset drivers, network drivers and the Retrospect client installer on it somehwere. When you need to do a restore, wipe the drive, install windows into a non-defualt directory, install the chipset drivers, Install network drivers, Install Retrospect client and run the restore. A disaster recovery CD saves some of the legwork but standard restores arent that bad either. Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikrananka Posted June 12, 2004 Report Share Posted June 12, 2004 I too have the same problem having just completed my first primary and client backups. I created a disaster recovery CD image for my primary local system and then went to do the same for my single client only to hit this licensing problem. I too am miffed by this, the software is advertised as being bundled with two client licenses. I do not expect to find that the client licenses do not provide the same functionality as the primary. The cost of the Retrospect Pro software is around £70 while the Disaster Recovery Add-On license costs around £125. Therefore it does not make sense for a small single client user like me (i.e. the type of user that Retrospect Professional is aimed at) to have to pay nearly double the base software cost to enable functionality for a client that should be there in the first place!!! Don't get me wrong, I think the software is excellent (although I find the GUI unintuative and confusing), my gripe is with this aspect of the licensing. OK, I could do a Windows reinstall and then a standard recovery to my client, but that is a lot more preparation work. Any feedback from Dantz on this issue would be most welcome. Andrew Arthur Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmataras Posted June 13, 2004 Report Share Posted June 13, 2004 Nate: I have 2 questions with regard to your response. (1) Could you please elaborate a little on your explanation about how to set up a client for disaster recovery? You say, for Win 98, "wipe the drive, install windows into a non-default directory..." Why a non-default directory? What if the pc that is being wiped out had win 98 in the default directory? Won't that screw up the recovery? And, what is a chipset driver? (2) My experience doing client disaster recovery in this way has been very tedious and has met with mixed success. It has never been a clean recovery -- always some problem or other; but even then, about half the time it's been a success; the other time I've had to give up and just create a new environment and restore data files. So, I'd like to do "bare metal" disaster recovery on my clients. It is not clear to me whether you can by add-on licenses for "bare metal" disaster recovery if you are running Retrospect Professional. When I look at the "product matrix", that does not seem to be an option. It looks like you can only get the add-on for client "bare metal" if you have Retrospect Small Business Edition. What is your understanding? Can I get client "bare metal" disaster recovery add-ons for Retrospect Professional? And will my results be any better than my almost-okay results that I get now ( only half the time, actually! ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted June 21, 2004 Report Share Posted June 21, 2004 Hi To answer your A bare metal restore can be performed on any machine you backup with Retrospect client even without the disaster recovery option. You don't need any additional licenses or anything. Just install a clean OS into a non default folder (something other than the windows folder), install drivers for your motherboard (chipset drivers), install your network card, install Retrospect client and then run the restore. If you have time it makes sense to put all of the required drivers on a CD ahead of time. That saves you the trouble of looking for them when your computer is down. Hope that helps Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvanland Posted July 8, 2004 Report Share Posted July 8, 2004 I'd like to add my query relative to my own situation. I've been a fan of Retrospect backup since Seagate abandoned small users and have employed Retrospect to restore after a crash. To startup from a DR CD, feed in a a tape and return a few hours later to a machine that is complete and correct is really very cool. I recently built a replacement machine to support my digital photo and video hobby. Pondered why one would build a 3 Ghz machine only to burden it with unrelated background processes and decided to leave the old machine running the fax software and modem. I thought having the bundled client licenses also meant I could leave that cranky SCSI card and tape drive as-is and let it back up both machines. I too felt short-changed when the window popped up indicating that I needed additional licenses to create disaster recovery. After going carefully through the web site, I concede that the literature (now reading the fine print) is very carefully parsed to say DR is only for the local machine but it also treats backup and recovery as if one can exist (or is useful) without the other. The big print completely glosses over this distinction. I then rationalized that even with some small additional cost for a client DR license to go with the somewhat ineffective client backup licenses would still be a good value. After all, how much could they possibly cost? I punched the "WEB" button and apparently the answer is $600. So, some questions: Am I right? Is the minimum cost of the first client DR license really $599? Did I miss the client DR two-pack that would logically go with the Retrospect Pro client backup bundled two-pack? Why does the client bare-metal restore procedure described in post #42707 differ from the one listed in the manual? (Page 143, step 5, and, oh, by the way, step 8, "forget the old client" would seem to be about the stupidest thing you would ever want to do in a disaster situation. Did someone say "counterintuitive?") Being the cautious sort that I am (that is, after all, the critical personality trait of a backup software purchaser, isn't it?) if I am told two different things about supposedly the same thing, I now feel I don't have any reliable information. Has either "bare-metal" procedure been extensively tested with applications? That's as opposed to data files. The reason I ask is that data files can be dumped back on a hard drive and be expected to be accessible but applications can be considerably more finicky - expecting to see the right registry entries and drivers, et al in just the right places. What the restore process does/doesn't, can/can't overwrite makes the difference between disaster recovery and, well, disaster. By my count, that's seven questions, two of which are rhetorical, leaving five begging for answers. Help is greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted July 14, 2004 Report Share Posted July 14, 2004 Hi Client Disaster recovery is a new feature for Retrospect 6.5 and is only available as an add on for Retrospect server products. With Retrospect Professional you can do a bare metal client restore the same way you would have in older versions of Retrospect (install the OS, Install the client, log in said client and restore) Quote: "forget the old client" would seem to be about the stupidest thing you would ever want to do in a disaster situation. Forgetting the client does not remove its files from the backup. It simply removes the old client entry from the client database. If you don't forget the client you will not be able to log in the machine you wish to restore to. Bare metal client restores have not changed over the last 3 years that I have been with Dantz. It is a well tested method for restoring entire working systems over the network. Retrospect is capable of doing a live restore of open system files. We use some services to copy files at oportune times during the restore process. Thats why a few reboots are involved in a full restore. Simply put, it works! Thanks Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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