Retrospect Express and MacBook Pro

On 2007-09-27, at 22:24, jclay wrote:

> Is there a known problem with Retrospect on Intel Macs? Am I
> missing something.

I can't speak to the rest of your problem (you could try the forums
<http://forums.dantz.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/Cat/0>), but I'm
running the full version of Retrospect just fine on an Intel MacBook
Pro and iMac (issues about antiquated apps and quirky behaviour aside).

I too am running the full version of Retrospect just fine on an Intel MacBookPro and I do my backups over a home LAN (Ethernet network). Frankly though, I rely on SuperDuper for my primary backups on an external drive. It creates the most reliable clones. I use Retrospect strictly as a secondary backup process on another external drive.

I know I ran into troubles when I added an intel-based OS X Server computer (my first intel Mac) to the list of computers I was backing up with Retrospect. My problem turned out to be related to the way Access Control Lists are handled on intel machines. Dantz had an updated version of the Retrospect Server software that would allow me to not back up ACLs on intel machines. This probably isn't a solution for your situation, but you never know.

<http://kb.dantz.com/display/2n/kb/article.asp?aid=9576>

jclay wrote:
> I have recently bought a MacBook Pro. I used the convenient Apple app
> to transfer everything from my PowerBook to the new machine so it all
> appears to be as it was before. Now I'm trying to backup my new
> machine to my Firewire and USB 2 external HDs using Retrospect
> Express. I have the latest version of the software which says it
> works with Mac OS X 10.4. I made two backups from the PB with the
> same OS, with the exception of the updates since June. Nonetheless,
> Retrospect won't update the old backups and when I try to make a
> completely new backup, although Retrospect allows me to create a
> catalog on the external HDs, when it comes time to actually do the
> backup, it says it can only find the DVD/CD.
>
> Is there a known problem with Retrospect on Intel Macs? Am I missing
> something.
>
> Any thoughts on how to solve this problem or move on to another
> software solution would be greatly appreciated.

It sounds (lots of reading between the lines here) that you told Retro to use the external drives as if they were removable media. If so it also seems like Retro thinks the media is full and you need to put in new blank media. It also sounds like it didn't figure out the size of your removable media (which you don't really have) and made an assumption that's way too low.

I think you should use the "File" option. You still have to deal with what to do when the external drive fills up but it is a LOT more obvious what's going on.

David