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Retrospect 6.5 Using Iomega REV Drives


FuzzyJohn

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I just installed an Iomega REV Drive (ATAPI) and I upgraded from Retrospect 6 to Retrospect 6.5. The Iomega System files (drivers) have to be installed so that Retrospect can use this drive as removable media.

 

I was able to do full and incremental backups to the REV disk with a Disk Backup Set. But I came across some odd issues regarding the erasing of the disks.

 

If I use Retrospect to erase the disk I am not able to create a backup set to use that disk I just erased. I get a message that the disk is full and that I need to use a different one. Looking at the disk in Windows Explorer I noticed that Retrospect placed several 2.1 GB files on the disk, occupying 99% of the free space.

 

If I erase or format the disk in Windows Explorer (UDF file system) the disk shows up as "Unknown". However Retrospect will backup to this disk. After the backup Retrospect still shows this disk as "Unknown" but for contents it shows that the disk contains a backup set. Looking at the disk contents in Windows Explorer, the structure is completely different from the one placed on the disk when Retrospect erases the disk.

 

Is this a bug?

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I had the same problem.

The problem is that all REV disks have exactly the same unique disk identifier because they all have been pre-formatted in the factory. That way Retrospect can not determine which disk is inserted and it thinks the new disk is the same as the old disk because they have the same identifier.

To solve this you have to quick-format all REV disks once with Windows Explorer. That way each disk gets his own unique disk identifier.

Tip: Upgrade to the latest system software from IOMEGA (version 1.03). That solved a number of other problems I had with the drive.

 

Marc

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I did update to the latest Iomega system software. I did do a quick format of the disks in Windows Explorer. The Iomega format routine placed 2 files on the disk (autorun.inf and the drive icon file).

After launching Retrospect 6.5, in Device Configuration this disk appeared under "Removable Disk as (Unknown) and its contents shown as "unrecognized". I was able to create a new backup set that will use this disk and that backup set did perform a full backup and several incrementals on this disk.

 

I took a new disk and again I formatted this disk in Windows Explorer.

After launching Retrospect 6.5, in Device Configuration I erased this disk. After the erase (which was very fast) the disk appeared un "Removable Devices" as (Untitled) and its contents shown as "erased". When I tried to create a new backup set that will use this disk I got a message saying that the disk was full and that I needed to make more room on it or to use a different disk.

 

Looking at this disk (erased by Retrospect) in Windows Explorer I could see 17 files:

Retrospect Data

Retrospect Data 002

Retrospect Data 003

to

Retrospect Data 017

The size of these files was 2,096,128 except for the last file which was 638,668. The disk was 99% full.

 

It simply looks to me like Retrospect prepares these disks (when erasing) in a format or layout that is not compatible with the type of backup set (Disk) used to write to these disks.

 

Are you getting a different behavior Marc?

 

Quote:

I had the same problem.

The problem is that all REV disks have exactly the same unique disk identifier because they all have been pre-formatted in the factory. That way Retrospect can not determine which disk is inserted and it thinks the new disk is the same as the old disk because they have the same identifier.

To solve this you have to quick-format all REV disks once with Windows Explorer. That way each disk gets his own unique disk identifier.

Tip: Upgrade to the latest system software from IOMEGA (version 1.03). That solved a number of other problems I had with the drive.

 

Marc

 


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Ok, I guess we were talking about two different problems. Sorry about that.

 

I just checked this with a new disk and I get exactly the same behaviour. Erasing the media with Retrospect will indeed create the files you mentioned and the disk cannot be used.

If you start a recycle backup and Retrospect has to erase the disk before starting the backup everything goes Ok.

Probably Retrospect gets things mixed up because the REV disk uses the UDF format.

 

I think Dantz support has to look into this.

 

Marc

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Hi

 

This is normal and the way Retrospect is designed to work. When you use a disk with a "disk" backup set you have an option to "format and rename disk". With this option checked Retrospect will erase the contents of the disk and fill it with empty 2 gig files until the disk is full. These files are place holders to prevent you from putting anything else on the disk. Retrospect then fills up these empty files until the disk is actually full.

 

If you choose not to select this option Retrospect will create a folder at the root of the disk leaving the rest of the disk open for regular use.

 

When you say Retrospect won't use the disk what do you mean? Are you saying it won't automatically use the disk or that it will only do so if you manually erase it?

 

Have you turned on the automatically reuse pre-named media option?

 

Thanks

nate

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Quote:

Hi

 

This is normal and the way Retrospect is designed to work. When you use a disk with a "disk" backup set you have an option to "format and rename disk". With this option checked Retrospect will erase the contents of the disk and fill it with empty 2 gig files until the disk is full. These files are place holders to prevent you from putting anything else on the disk. Retrospect then fills up these empty files until the disk is actually full.

 


This is exactly what I get when I have Retrospect erase the disk at the Storage Devices tab.

 

Quote:

If you choose not to select this option Retrospect will create a folder at the root of the disk leaving the rest of the disk open for regular use.

 


This is what I get when I erase or format the disk in Windows Explorer.

 

Quote:

When you say Retrospect won't use the disk what do you mean? Are you saying it won't automatically use the disk or that it will only do so if you manually erase it?

 

Have you turned on the automatically reuse pre-named media option?

 

Thanks

nate

 


What I mean is that after Retrospect erases the disk, when I create a new backup set and I select to use the disk that Retrospect just erased, the Create Backup set wizard rejects the disk saying that the disk is full.

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Hi

 

Thanks for the clarification. I have reproduced the problem here. I believe this only occurs when creating a backup set. After that adding members should not be a problem. I'll report the issue to our engineers immediately.

 

In the meantime there are two possible workarounds:

 

1)Erasing disks in Windows prior to adding them to a disk backup set

 

2)Select the local C drive as a backup disk when you create the backup set. Then open the properties->Members tab for the backup set and remove the C drive member. Then add the correct REV disk as a member.

 

Thanks

Nate @ Dantz

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