mfleahy Posted September 30, 2004 Report Share Posted September 30, 2004 I just got off the phone with tech support, AFTER agreeing to pay $70 to open an incident. For approximately 15 minutes of "help" I received the answer that Dantz couldn't help. When I asked if I still had to pay for this non-solution, the tech stated that since the software didn't have a bug, it was not their problem. Here's the problem. I had a laptop which had a hard disk that was making unusual noises. I installed the client and did an immediate backup to my desktop PC on a Sony DVD-R drive. Retrospect wrote the first disk, completed the second disk and then went into verify mode. It asked for the first disk, attempted to read it, and returned the disk status as "ERASED." I could see from the disk itself that it was fully written (and I babysat it for most of the writing). Of course, that's when the hard drive chose to fail completely. I put in a new hard drive and rebuilt it to the point that I could try to restore files. Retrospect could read the second disk, and I have already recovered some files onto the new hard drive. My problem, of course, is the first disk. There is about 4.5G hidden in there somewhere, and Dantz says there is no way to recover the information. Does anyone know of some way to read the DVD image and somehow get it on to a Retrospect-readable disk. Otherwise, I have to shell out about $1000 to send the hard drive to a data recovery service, with no guarantee of success. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted September 30, 2004 Report Share Posted September 30, 2004 Hi If the disc came up as "erased" in the verify pass there is no guarantee that any of the data on the first disk is valid. If possible try the disc in another DVD-R drive. Some drives are more tolerant of errors than others. Is the laptop drive completely dead now? Any chance you could put it in a USB or firewire drive enclosure and restore the disk that way? Thanks Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfleahy Posted September 30, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2004 The Dantz tech suggested that maybe only the header on the DVD was clobbered, but I'm not sure if there isn't some way to do a sector-by-sector copy (just like the old days of Norton DiskEditor). I tried a couple of disk rescue programs on the DVD, but they weren't even able to read the good disk from the set. I guess Dantz uses some non-standard formatting. As far as the hard drive, the symptoms are consistent with a non-bootable drive, i.e., it spins up on boot but then spins back down, whereupon the system states "No Hard Drive available." Of course, that's also consistent with a more serious hardware failure too. I'll probably get an adapter and put it into a desktop and see if it is really dead. That's worth a shot before I send it off to a data recovery place (best quote so far was $1050.00). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted October 1, 2004 Report Share Posted October 1, 2004 Hi Sorry to hear about the hard drive. Retrospect uses packet writing to write the disks. Its still an industry standard but it isn't used very widely. Retrospect also formats the data in a way that may not be recognized by other programs. Thanks Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhal Posted October 1, 2004 Report Share Posted October 1, 2004 Retrospect probably uses a proprietary packet writing scheme. I have not tested dvd repair products specifically for this purpose, but here is a link to a product that claims to deal with this type of writing. http://www.softarch.com/us/products/filerecovery/filerecoveryutilities.html You may have already tried something like this, however hope it works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfleahy Posted October 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 4, 2004 Thanks for the advice. I was able to get the hard drive into a desktop with an adapter and recover all of my important files. The disk appears to have problems in the Windows directory, as well as in the boot area, so it's no good for an image copy to the new drive. The annoying part is that I will have to reinstall all of my software. I still don't understand how Retrospect can spend a couple of hours writing a disk, only to report "Disk Erased." It seems to me there needs to be some checking of the media at the beginning, and possibly during, the backup process. I realize a write-verify sequence for every file (or directory) is probably not a great option, given how DVD's and CD's are written, but waiting for verification after a full volume of 5, 20, 80, etc. Gb is written to multiple disks is not user friendly. Maybe an automatic verify after each DVD is written makes more sense than a verify after 5 DVDs go through. At least that gives you the chance to recover in the shortest time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted October 5, 2004 Report Share Posted October 5, 2004 Hi There are a lot of things that complicate the issue. Verification after write slows everything to molasses. Retrospect hands commands off to the device and expects that they will be carried out completely. If the device doesn't complain Retrospect will continue with the backup. In your case the drive either failed to write the disk header properly or the disc itself was bad. Thanks Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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