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by Joe Kissell
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NOTE: This online appendix covers Retrospect 6.x only. Version 8.x has a much-improved user interface, and better official documentation is promised to appear soon, so I will not be updating this appendix to cover the new version.

Even though Retrospect has recently undergone a massive overhaul, many people are still using the older version 6.x. Of the many things one might complain about in version 6.x, the most significant by far is the user interface. It’s weird. It’s confusing. And the difficulty ordinary users have in getting past the interface to the useful stuff beneath is one reason so many people are looking for alternatives to Retrospect.

When I started using Retrospect way back when, I found it confusing, too. The 250+ page manual for version 6.x contains plenty of helpful information, but it’s a lot to get one’s brain around. With some effort, though, I managed to figure out enough of Retrospect to get my own backups working, and eventually I became so accustomed to the interface that I barely notice how weird it is anymore.

In this online appendix, I provide a brief overview of Retrospect 6.0’s terminology, logic, and interface—with special attention to things you’re likely to find confusing. I won’t cover everything, of course, but I hope I can give enough information that you can feel comfortable using it for basic duplicates and archives—for a single computer or for a small network. Unless otherwise noted, everything in this appendix applies to both Retrospect Desktop and Retrospect Express.

Retrospect Terminology

Before I get into specific Retrospect windows or activities, I want to explain some important terms as Retrospect uses them. Understanding these words will make everything else much easier:

• Backup: An operation in which Retrospect copies files into a special file called a backup set (see “Backup Set,” ahead in this list). Every backup to a given backup set after the first one is, by definition, an additive incremental archive. (Retrospect doesn’t perform differential backups.) So, for the remainder of this appendix, I use the term “Backup” to refer to what I normally call an “archive.”
• Duplicate: An operation in which the entire contents of a volume are copied exactly to another volume. Subsequent duplicates are incremental, and may delete files absent on the source (using the “Replace Entire Disk” option) or leave such files on the destination (using the “Replace Corresponding Files” option). Duplicates of startup volumes to external FireWire drives, secondary internal drives, or partitions on such drives, should be bootable—as long as you chose the “Replace Entire Disk” option. Duplicates do not use backup sets.
• Archive: A backup operation in which Retrospect deletes the original files after copying them into a backup set.
• Restore: An operation in which files are copied from a backup set to another location—which may or may not be their original location.
• Script: A saved set of options for a backup, duplicate, archive, or restore operation, which you can run at any time (manually or on a schedule). Scripts include what data you’re backing up, to what destination, with which selectors and other options, and schedule information. The term “Script” is a bit of a misnomer—unlike with AppleScript scripts, shell scripts, and so on, you don’t actually see a script (a sequence of coded instructions); you see only settings in dialogs and windows.
• Backup Server: A script type for backups (not found in Retrospect Express) that provides for a flexible schedule and multiple backup sets. Using this script type, Retrospect can back up clients whenever they happen to be available on the network, and store the backups on whatever media happens to be present. This makes backing up laptops and rotating backup media much easier.
• EasyScript: A series of dialogs that walk you through the creation of a basic backup script (including a Backup Set, if necessary) by asking you simple questions. I’ve found that EasyScript selections always require significant modification after the fact, so I prefer to skip EasyScript and define my own scripts manually.
• Backup Set: A special file that stores all the files and folders you’re backing up; what I normally refer to as an archive. A backup set can contain many versions of any given file, and may optionally be compressed, encrypted, or both. Backup sets are readable only by Retrospect; you can’t access their contents directly from the Finder.
• Catalog: An index of a backup set’s contents. For backup sets stored on a hard disk or network server, you can opt to store the catalog in the same file as the backup set or as a separate file (even on a different volume from the backup set), so you can view and search the contents of your backups even if the backup set itself is unavailable. (Backups sets stored on removable media always keep their catalog files on your hard disk.) If a catalog is missing or damaged, Retrospect can reconstruct it from the backup set itself.
• Source: Whatever you’re backing up—volume(s) or subvolume(s) on one or more physical drives.
• Destination: The location where backed-up files will be stored. For backup, backup server, and archive operations, the destination must be a backup set (or more than one backup set); for duplicate operations, the destination must be a volume.
• Subvolume: A folder you’ve designated as a backup source or destination. You cannot create a bootable volume by duplicating a startup volume to a subvolume, because as far as Mac OS X is concerned, a subvolume is just a folder.
• Client: A computer on your network that’s running Retrospect Client, and which you can back up to a server running Retrospect Desktop.
• Device: A physical device that can store data—such as an optical drive or a tape drive. (Hard drives and network servers don’t count as “devices” in Retrospect’s usage.) Some devices require special setup before they can be used, but in most cases, optical drives are recognized automatically.
• Normal: The default backup behavior, which is to copy all the selected files on the first run, and then copy only new or changed files (an additive incremental archive) on subsequent runs.
• Recycle: This setting instructs Retrospect to erase a backup set and then perform a normal backup.
• New Media: This setting instructs Retrospect to create a fresh backup set (with all the attributes of an existing set) on a new set of media, without erasing the existing media.

The Directory

When you open Retrospect, its main window, called the Directory, appears (see Figure 1). You can click any of the tab-like buttons at the top of the window to display a pane containing a few buttons; clicking these buttons opens the windows where you actually perform useful tasks. The number and names of these tabs (and the controls on them) differ between Retrospect Desktop and Retrospect Express.

Figure 1
	Retrospect’s main Directory window. This figure shows Retrospect Desktop; Retrospect Express has fewer panes and a somewhat different arrangement of buttons.

When you click a button to open a window, the Directory usually remains visible in the background; you can return to it at any time by choosing Retrospect Directory (or Retrospect Express Directory) from the Window menu. Be aware that almost every action you perform in Retrospect opens at least one new window; you could easily end up with half a dozen or more windows open at once.

Because Retrospect helpfully includes explanations of each button right in the Directory window, I’m not going to reiterate all the button names and functions here. I do, however, want to point out where you can find some commonly used features.

• To set Retrospect’s preferences: In Retrospect Desktop, click Preferences on the Special pane. In Retrospect Express, click Preferences on the Configure pane.

Note	For most users, Retrospect’s default preferences are ideal.

• To set up a recurring Duplicate or Backup: Click Scripts on the Automate pane. See Set Up a Duplicate Script (above) and Set Up a Backup Script, ahead.

Note

Backup Server is compatible with your existing, fixed-schedule scripts, including Duplicate scripts. If another script is scheduled to run while Backup Server is actively backing up, the script runs as soon as Backup Server finishes. If Backup Server happens to be idle when another script is scheduled to run, the scheduled script takes over and then returns control to Backup Server when it’s done.

• To restore backed-up files: Click Restore on the Immediate pane. See Restore a Backup.
• To duplicate a volume as a one-time activity: Click Duplicate on the Immediate pane.
• To prepare client machines on your network for backup: Click Clients on the Configure pane (Retrospect Desktop only). See Back Up Network Clients.
• To run a script immediately: Choose the script name from the Run menu.

Set Up a Duplicate Script

In Retrospect, if you want to make a bootable copy of your hard disk, you use the Duplicate feature. You can create a one-off duplicate by clicking Duplicate on the Immediate tab, but here, we’re concerned with setting up duplicates as a regularly scheduled activity. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Click the Automate tab, and then click the Scripts button. The Scripts window appears.
2. Click New to create a new script, and select Duplicate in the dialog that appears. Click OK.
3. Enter a name for your script and click OK. The Duplicate window (Figure 2) appears.

Figure 2
	The Duplicate window, like other script summary windows, provides an overview of the options selected for this script.

4. Click the Source button. Select the volume you want to duplicate and click OK.
5. Click the Destination button. Select the volume where your duplicate will be stored. Choose Replace Entire Disk (or Replace Entire Contents) from the pop-up menu at the top of the window—not Replace Corresponding Files!—and click OK. Keep in mind that the destination volume, if a hard disk or partition, must be at least as large as the amount of data on the source volume.

Note	You must choose a volume icon—not a subvolume or folder icon—as the destination if you wish your duplicate to be bootable.

Warning! Check to see that the destination volume does not ignore ownership; if it does, your duplicate will not be bootable. To check this, select the destination volume’s icon in the Finder and choose File > Get Info. In the Ownership & Permissions portion of the window, make sure the checkbox labeled Ignore Ownership On This Volume is deselected.

6. Optionally, click the Selecting button and make a selection from the pop-up menu to restrict which files are copied. You might, for example, choose All Files Except Cache Files or All Except Cache & Spotlight; these two choices will speed up the duplication while omitting non-critical files. If you’re using Retrospect Desktop, you can click More Choices to access more-sophisticated selectors. When you’re finished, click OK.
7. Click the Options button. Make sure the Verification checkbox is selected, and click OK.
8. Click the Schedule button and add in your desired schedule. (I talk more about setting up schedules in Schedule a Duplicate, below.) When you finish, click OK.
9. Close the Duplicate window, and click Save when prompted.

Your Duplicate script is now ready to go, and will run on the schedule you set—even if you quit Retrospect. If you want to run it immediately, choose the script’s name from the Run menu.

After testing your duplicate to ensure that you can indeed boot your Mac from it, you can repeat this procedure to set up Duplicate scripts for additional hard disks or other media.

Schedule a Duplicate

You can schedule duplicates to occur as frequently or as seldom as you wish, but I suggest running them at least once a week. Better yet, use two or more hard drives and alternate your duplicates between them—drive #1 one week, then drive #2, and so on. This scheme will enable you to keep one of the drives off-site at all times. In this example, I show how to schedule duplicates to run once a week, alternating between two drives. Feel free to alter these instructions to meet your needs if you’re using a different number of drives or want to run duplicates at a different frequency.

To schedule an alternating weekly duplicate in Retrospect, follow these steps:

1. Select the Automate tab and click the Scripts button.
2. Select the Duplicate script that you created for your first drive; then click Edit.
3. Click the Schedule button, and then the Add button (Figure 3).

Figure 3
	Retrospect’s Schedule list (still empty in this example) appears when you click the Schedule button for a script. Add a new schedule by clicking the Add button in this dialog.

4. For the kind of schedule to add, choose Repeating Interval.
5. Enter today’s date as the start date.
6. Choose the day of the week on which you want the backup to occur, and select a time.
7. From the Repeat pop-up menu, choose Every <x> Weeks on <day of week>.
8. In the field labeled Weeks, enter 2 if you have two sets of media or 3 if you have three sets of media. Figure 4 shows an example of what the finished schedule may look like.
9. Confirm that the text at the top of the dialog matches your expectations, as in “Do Duplicate Every other week on Wednesday, starting 12/01/2005 at 2:00 am.” Then click OK.
10. Select your next Duplicate script and repeat Steps 3–8, but in Step 4, choose a start date 1 week later.

Your selected scripts will now alternate on a weekly basis.

Figure 4
	This repeating interval schedule in Retrospect runs every 2 weeks on Saturday. To change it to every 3 weeks, enter 3 in the Weeks field; to change the interval from weeks to days or months, use the Repeat pop-up menu.

Note	After you set up a schedule, you can quit Retrospect. Retrospect installs a small background application in your /Library/StartupItems folder called RetroRun, which monitors your scheduled backups and launches Retrospect, when necessary, to run them at the proper times.

Set Up a Backup Server Script

Backup Server is a wonderful feature—actually a script type, which can make rotating archives incredibly easy. (Unfortunately, it cannot be used for duplicates.) Backup Server has two main attributes:

• It constantly polls all designated sources (which could be a folder on a local volume or another computer on your network) to see if they’ve been backed up within the past 24 hours—or whatever interval you choose—and if not, it performs a backup immediately. (You can also restrict the Backup Server to run only during certain times of certain days.) This way, even if your laptop is not available for daily backups on a fixed schedule, you can be sure backups will occur when it is present.
• It uses any designated media that happens to be available at the moment. So you could set up three different hard drives as backup destinations, attach or detach them whenever you like, and Retrospect automatically updates the oldest archive available the next time it runs. This eliminates the need to maintain a strict schedule for swapping media to take it off-site.

If you’re using Retrospect Desktop, Backup Server is generally a much better choice for automated archives than a fixed schedule. (This feature is absent in Retrospect Express, so if you’re using Express, or wish to follow a fixed schedule, see Set Up a Backup Script, ahead.)

To use Retrospect’s Backup Server feature, follow these steps:

1. Click the Automate tab, and then click the Scripts button.
2. In the Scripts window that appears, click New to create a new script, and choose Backup Server in the dialog that appears (Figure 5).

Figure 5
	To use Retrospect’s Backup Server feature, select it as the script type in this dialog.

3. Enter a name for your script and click OK. The Backup Server window appears.
4. Click the Source button to display the Volume Selection window. To back up an entire volume, select it in here. To back up just part of a volume, select the volume and click Subvolume. Navigate to a folder you’d like to back up (such as your home folder) and click Define. You can repeat this as many times as necessary. Each subvolume you define then appears as a folder in the Volume Selection window. (To select multiple volumes or subvolumes in this window, hold down Command while clicking.) When you’re finished selecting sources, click OK.
5. Click the Destination button. Two dialogs open: the Destinations dialog and, in front of that, the Backup Set Selection dialog. You should add backup sets for each of the drives you’re using to store your archives. If you’ve already defined the backup set(s) you want to use, select them here (Command-click to select more than one backup set). If not, follow these steps:
6. 1. Click New to create a new backup set.
   2. Choose File (not Removable Disk!) from the Backup Set Type pop-up menu.
   3. If you want to encrypt the backup set, click the Secure button, select an encryption type, and enter a passphrase.

Note	You must decide whether to use encryption when you initially create a backup set. You can’t change the encryption settings for a backup set after the fact.

When you’ve finished adding backup sets to the script, click OK to dismiss the Destinations dialog.

6. Optionally, click the Selecting button and make a selection from the pop-up menu to restrict which files are copied. You might, for example, choose All Files Except Cache Files or All Except Cache & Spotlight; these two choices will speed up the backup while omitting non-critical files. If you’re using Retrospect Desktop, you can click More Choices to access more-sophisticated selectors. When you’re finished, click OK.
7. Click the Options button. Enter the maximum frequency for your backups—such as “every 1 day” or “every 4 hours.” If you want to turn on compression (a good idea), click More Choices, then select Backup in the list on the left and select the Backup Compression (In Software) checkbox. Click OK.
8. To restrict Backup Server to certain days or times, click the Schedule button. Select the Custom Schedule radio button, and then click Custom. Select the times and days you want the Backup Server to run, then click OK. Finally, click OK a second time to dismiss the Schedule window, and close the Backup Server window.

Backup Server is now configured to archive your files onto the selected backup media whenever they are available. To activate the Backup Server script immediately, choose Run > Start Backup Server. When Backup Server is running, the main Retrospect Directory disappears and the Backup Server window appears instead. To return to the Directory (to make other changes in Retrospect), you must close the Backup Server window and confirm that you really do want to stop the execution of the Backup Server.

Note

Backup Server is compatible with your existing, fixed-schedule scripts, including Duplicate scripts. If another script is scheduled to run while Backup Server is actively backing up, the script runs as soon as Backup Server finishes. If Backup Server happens to be idle when another script is scheduled to run, the scheduled script takes over and then returns control to Backup Server when it’s done.

Set Up a Backup Script

If you own Retrospect Express and therefore can’t use the Backup Server script type—or if you simply prefer to have your backups run on a regular schedule—you should set up a Backup script to perform additive incremental archives. The instructions are similar to those for the Backup Server script, just previously, except that you must specify an explicit schedule.

To set up a Backup script, follow these steps:

1. Click the Automate tab, and then click the Scripts button. The Scripts window appears.
2. Click New to create a new script, and choose Backup in the dialog that appears.
3. Enter a name for your script and click OK. The Backup window appears.
4. Click the Source button to display the Volume Selection window. To back up an entire volume, select it in this window. To back up just part of a volume, select the volume and click Subvolume. Navigate to a folder you’d like to back up (such as your home folder) and click Define. You can repeat this as many times as necessary. Each subvolume you define then appears as a folder in the Volume Selection window. (To select multiple volumes or subvolumes in this window, hold down Command while clicking.) When you’re finished selecting sources, click OK.
5. Click the Destination button. Two dialogs open: the Destinations dialog and, in front of that, the Backup Set Selection dialog. Ordinarily, you’ll select just one backup set here (and then create an entirely new backup script for each additional destination drive). If you’ve already defined the backup set you want to use, select it here. If not, follow these steps:
6. 1. Click New to create a new backup set.
   2. Choose File (not Removable Disk!) from the Backup Set Type pop-up menu.
   3. If you want to encrypt the backup set, click the Secure button, select an encryption type, and enter a passphrase.

Note	You must decide whether to use encryption when you initially create a backup set. You can’t change the encryption settings for a backup set after the fact.

When you’ve added your backup set to the script, click OK to dismiss the Destinations dialog.

6. Optionally, click the Selecting button and make a selection from the pop-up menu to restrict which files are copied. You might, for example, choose All Files Except Cache Files or All Except Cache & Spotlight; these two choices will speed up the backup while omitting non-critical files. If you’re using Retrospect Desktop, you can click More Choices to access more-sophisticated selectors. When you finish, click OK.
7. Click the Options button. Make sure the Verification checkbox is selected, and if you want to turn on compression (a good idea), select the Backup Compression (In Software) checkbox. Click OK.
8. Click the Schedule button and set your schedule. (For more details about setting up schedules, see Schedule Backups, below.) When you finish, click OK.
9. Close the Backup window, and click Save when prompted to do so.

Your Backup script is now ready to go, and will run on the schedule you set—even if you quit Retrospect. If you want to run it immediately, choose the script’s name from the Run menu.

After testing your archive (see Test Your Archive), you can repeat this procedure to set up Backup scripts for additional hard disks or media.

Note

Execution Errors After Retrospect completes a backup, it may display a window saying there were execution errors. Don’t worry about this. No, really: don’t worry about it. Execution errors are common and don’t necessarily indicate a problem. Most frequently, an “error” means that something didn’t match between Retrospect’s pre-backup scan and its post-backup verification, which will be the case if files (such as temporary system files) change while the backup is in progress—which they often do.

Schedule Backups

You can schedule backups to occur as frequently or as seldom as you wish, but I suggest running them at least once a day. Better yet, use two or more hard drives and alternate your backups between them on a weekly basis—drive #1 every day one week, then drive #2 every day the following week, and so on. This sort of scheme enables you to keep one of the drives off-site at all times. In this example, I show how to schedule backups to run daily, alternating between two drives on a weekly basis. Feel free to alter these instructions to meet your needs if you’re using a different number of drives or want to run duplicates at a different frequency.

To schedule your backups scripts, follow these steps:

1. Select the Automate tab and click Scripts.
2. Select your first Backup script, and then click Edit.
3. Click the Schedule button, then the Add button.
4. For the kind of schedule to add, choose Day of Week.
5. Enter today’s date as the start date.
6. Select the days of the week on which you want the backup to occur, (usually all of them) and select a time.
7. In the field labeled Weeks, enter 2 if you have two sets of media or 3 if you have three sets of media (Figure 6).

Figure 6
	This Day of Week schedule in Retrospect runs every day for a week, in alternating weeks. To change it to alternate every 3 weeks (if you use three sets of backup media), enter 3 in the Weeks field.

8. Choose Normal Backup from the Action pop-up menu.
9. Confirm that the text at the top of the dialog matches your expectations, as in “Do Normal backup to Maggie Backup Set Every other week on SMTWTFS, starting 12/27/2006 at 10:00 pm.” Then click OK.
10. Select your next Backup script and repeat Steps 3–8, but in Step 4, choose a start date 1 week later.

Your selected scripts will now run daily, but alternate on a weekly basis.

Tip	If you have an old Mac (or, say, a Mac mini) that you’d like to turn into a dedicated backup server, read my article “Turn your old Mac into a backup server” in the September 2005 issue of Macworld: http://www.macworld.com/2005/08/features/oldmacnewtricks1/.

Back Up Network Clients

Retrospect Desktop has the capability of backing up the machine it’s running on, plus up to three other client machines. (You can purchase additional client licenses—or, for larger groups, upgrade to Retrospect Workgroup or Retrospect Server.) This means you can use just one set of backup media and one schedule for several computers, instead of setting up a backup system on each one individually. All you have to do is install Retrospect Client on each client machine, add the clients to Retrospect’s list, and select the volumes or subvolumes you want to back up on each one.

The first part of the process is to set up the clients. Follow these steps:

• On a client machine, install Retrospect Client (the installer is included with Retrospect Desktop).
• At the end of the installation process, the installer asks you for a password. Choose something different from your standard Mac OS X password—it need not be particularly secure—and confirm it when prompted.
• The installer then asks if you want to enable a firewall exception for Retrospect. If you have Mac OS X’s firewall turned on, be sure to answer Yes.
• Click the installer’s Restart button to restart your computer.
• Open the Retrospect Client application and make sure the On radio button is selected.

  Repeat these steps for each client machine. That’s it—your clients are now ready to go. The rest of the process happens on the server machine. To configure the server, follow these steps:

  1. Open Retrospect Desktop, go to the Configure pane, and click Clients.
  2. Click the Network button to display a window listing all the clients Retrospect can find on your local network (these are machines with Retrospect Client installed and turned on which are within the same subnet—and not blocked by a firewall). You should have TCP/IP selected as the Network Protocol, and Mac OS X selected as the Type.

  Tip

  If the machine you’re using as a server has a firewall turned on, you must also add an exception for Retrospect on the server. Go to the Firewall tab of the Sharing pane of System Preferences, click New, and choose Retrospect from the Port Name pop-up menu. If it does not appear in the list, choose Other and enter 497 in the TCP Port Number(s) field.

  3. If the client you want to add appears in the list, select its name. If the client does not appear in the list, click Add by Address and enter the IP address of the client computer; then, select the client’s name in the list. Click Log In, and type in the password you specified when you set up that client. Also confirm (or modify) the name for the client as it will appear in the server’s lists. Repeat this step as necessary for additional clients.
  4. After adding a client, the Client Configuration dialog should appear. (If it does not, double-click the client name in the Backup Client Database window.) On the General pane of this dialog, select Link Encryption if the client is connecting over a wireless network, or you want to add extra security to the data as it travels between the client and the server. From the Backup pop-up menu, choose Selected Volumes.
  5. On the Volumes pane, select all the volumes from the client machine that contain files or folders you want to back up. Click OK. Repeat as necessary for additional clients, and close the Backup Client Database window.

  Now your clients are ready to be added to your backup scripts. Follow the instructions in Set Up a Duplicate Script, Set Up a Backup Server Script, or Set Up a Backup Script to add clients to your scripts; the volume(s) you selected in Step 5 will appear in the Sources lists, and you can define subvolumes and selectors just as you did for items on the server itself.

  Tip

  If you’re making duplicates of clients over the network, remember to choose a volume—not a subvolume!—as the destination. You’ll probably want to store each duplicate on a separate FireWire hard drive, or at least a separate partition of a FireWire hard drive, so that you can later attach that drive to the client machine if you need to boot from the duplicate.

  Recycle a Backup Set

  If you’re storing your archives on hard disks, they will eventually fill up. How long that takes depends on the size of the disks, whether or not you use compression, and how frequently your files change. If the disk holding a backup set becomes completely full, Retrospect will continue attempting to run your backup scripts, but each one will fail due to a lack of disk space. Therefore, you should check on your free space periodically and, when it begins to get low, recycle your media—in other words, erase the backup set and start over with a full backup.

  The procedure to do so is easy, but it isn’t obvious. To recycle a backup set, follow these steps:

  1. On the Configure pane, click the Backup Sets button. The Backup Sets window appears.
  2. Select the backup set you want to recycle—the one that’s stored on whichever volume is closest to being full. Click Configure. A new dialog opens.
  3. Click the Options tab. At the bottom of the Options pane is a Media section with a single button: Action. Click the Action button. The Media Control Manual Override dialog appears.
  4. Select the Recycle radio button and click OK. This tells Retrospect that for the next run of this script only, it should use the Recycle action—erase the backup set and then perform a full backup.
  5. Close all the other windows, saving your changes if prompted.

  The next time your backup script runs, it will recycle that backup set.

  Needless to say, when you recycle a backup set, you lose all the old incremental archives from that set. Therefore, you should not recycle if you’ve had any computer problems recently that make you suspect you’ll need to access older versions of your files! The best practice, assuming you have more than one backup set for your archives, is to stagger their recycling dates—by a month or more, if possible. That way, you’ll always have at least several older copies of your files.

  Restore a Backup

  Retrospect’s Restore feature can sometimes be confusing. But don’t panic. When you need to recover backed-up files, follow the instructions here that most closely match your situation.

  Whichever method you choose, remember that Retrospect treats Restore operations in a method very similar to Backup or Duplicate operations—you choose the Source (the volume or backup set containing the files you want to restore), the Destination (where to put the restored files), and various Options. You also, in some cases, choose particular files within the Source that you want to recover. Then you perform the actual restoration.

  Restore a duplicate

  Before restoring a duplicate, consider whether that’s really what you want to do. Remember that you can boot your computer from a duplicate (as long as it’s stored on its own volume on a FireWire hard drive or, if you’re using an Intel Mac, a USB drive). If your internal disk has problems, you may find that you can boot from the duplicate and then run a utility to repair your internal disk. That can save you some time and effort over restoring the duplicate.

  Note	If you want to boot from a duplicate you created over a network, you must either physically connect the hard drive it’s on (internally or via FireWire) to the client machine or restore the duplicate onto the client’s hard drive over the network. You can’t boot from a duplicate over a network.

  However, if disk repair doesn’t work (or if, for any other reason, you want to restore a duplicate, in its entirety, to the original volume), do not use Retrospect’s Restore command! The Restore feature is only for files stored in backup sets (that is, archives). Instead, click the Duplicate button on the Immediate pane. Follow the same procedure you used for creating your duplicate, only swap the Source and Destination drives. Retrospect will then copy your duplicate back onto its original volume.

  Restore the entire contents of a backup

  If you’ve been archiving files to a backup set using a backup script and you want to replace the entire set of files on your original volume with the backed-up copies (whether the most recent snapshot or not), follow these steps:

  1. On the Immediate pane, click the Restore button. A dialog appears.
  2. Select the Restore an Entire Disk radio button (yes, even if you didn’t back up your entire disk) and click OK. The Restore from Backup: Source dialog appears.
  3. Select the backup set containing the files you want to restore. If you’ve backed up to multiple backup sets on different drives, you’ll generally want to select the backup set with the most recent date.
  4. When you select a backup set, the bottom portion of the window displays the most recent snapshot for each of the volumes (or subvolumes) in that set. If you want to restore files from the most recent snapshot, simply select the volume you want to restore in this list. However, if you want to restore the files as they appeared at an earlier time, click Add Snapshot. The Snapshot Retrieval window appears, listing snapshots for every backup session stored in this backup set. Select the one you want and click Retrieve. Then, select that snapshot in the Restore from Backup: Source dialog and click OK.
  5. In the Destination Selection dialog that appears, select the original volume or subvolume corresponding to the snapshot you selected in Step 4. Make sure the pop-up menu at the top of the window says Replace Entire Disk (the default setting), and click OK. When the confirmation alert appears, click Replace.

  Warning! Although it should be obvious by now, you are about to overwrite the files on your hard disk with the ones from your backup. If you are not completely certain this is what you want to do, select a different destination in Step 5 and then manually move the files to their original locations.

  6. After a few minutes of file scanning, Retrospect displays the Restore from Backup summary window. This is your last chance to make changes to your source, destination, or options before restoring your files. When you’re ready to go for it, click Restore.

  Retrospect restores all the files from your selected snapshot to their original locations.

  Restore individual files or folders from a backup

  Most of the time when I dip into an archive, it’s to find an older version of a particular file or folder I inadvertently modified or deleted. These situations fall into two categories. In the first case, I know (at least roughly) when the version of the file I’m looking for would have been backed up—and thus, I know which backup set likely contains it. In the second case, the file could be in any of several backup sets, and I’m not certain when a good copy was last backed up. Each situation requires a slightly different procedure.

  If you know which backup set contains the files you want and when they were backed up:

  To restore your files, follow these steps:

  1. On the Immediate pane, click the Restore button. A dialog appears.
  2. Select the Restore Files from a Backup button and click OK. The Restore from Backup: Source dialog appears.
  3. Select the backup set containing the files you want to restore. If you’ve backed up to multiple backup sets on different drives, you’ll generally want to select the backup set with the most recent date.
  4. When you select a backup set, the bottom portion of the window displays the most recent snapshot for each of the volumes (or subvolumes) in that set. If you want to restore files from the most recent snapshot, simply select the volume you want to restore in this list. However, if you want to restore the files as they appeared at an earlier time, click Add Snapshot. The Snapshot Retrieval window appears, listing snapshots for every backup session stored in this backup set. Select the one you want and click Retrieve. Then, select that snapshot in the Restore from Backup: Source dialog and click OK.

  Note	Right now, you’re only selecting the snapshot containing the files or folders you want to restore. Later, in Step 7, you’ll narrow that down to particular files or folders.

  5. In the Destination Selection dialog that appears, select the volume or subvolume where you want to put the restored files. Although you can choose the original location, a safer option is to leave the existing copies of the files and folders (if any) alone and restore the backups to another location. Make sure the pop-up menu at the top of the window says Retrieve Files & Folders (the default setting), and click OK.
  6. After a few minutes of file scanning, Retrospect displays the Restore from Backup summary window. To select the files and folders you want to restore, click the Files Chosen button. A window appears listing all the files in the snapshot you selected.
  7. In the snapshot list, navigate to the file(s) or folder(s) you want to restore. Double-click an item (or select it and click the Mark button at the top of the window) to indicate that you want to restore it. (A checkmark appears next to each file selected for restoration.) Repeat for as many items as you wish. When you finish selecting files, close the window.
  8. Back in the Restore from Backup summary window, click Restore.

  Retrospect copies the items you marked to the specified destination. It maintains the original folder structure, so what you’ll see if you look in the destination location is a folder with the same name as your backup set. Inside that folder will normally be another series of folders mirroring the original folder hierarchy, and if you navigate down through these folders, you’ll find the files you just restored.

  If you’re unsure where the files you want are located or when they were backed up:

  To restore your files, follow these steps:

  1. On the Immediate pane, click the Restore button. A dialog appears.
  2. Select the Search for Files and Folders button and click OK. The Restore from Backup: Source dialog appears.
  3. Select one or more backup sets—if you have no idea where your files may be, select all the backup sets. Then click OK.
  4. In the Destination Selection dialog that appears, select the volume or subvolume where you want to put the restored files. Although you can choose the original location, a safer option is to leave the existing copies of the files and folders (if any) alone and restore the backups to another location. Make sure the pop-up menu at the top of the window says Retrieve Files & Folders (the default setting), and click OK.
  5. Retrospect displays the Searching & Retrieval dialog. Use the pop-up menus to specify search criteria (just as you would in a Finder search) and click OK. Retrospect searches through the selected backup set(s) and selects all matching files.
  6. The Searching & Retrieval summary window appears. In the Files Chosen section, the window lists the total number of matching files it found.
  7. If you want to narrow that list down further to just particular files, click the Files Chosen button. In the list that appears, double-click an item (or select it and click the Unmark button at the top of the window) to indicate that you want to exclude it from the restoration. (A checkmark appears next to each file selected for restoration.) Repeat for as many items as you wish. When you finish selecting or deselecting files, close the window.
  8. In the Searching & Retrieval summary window, click Retrieve.

  Retrospect copies the items you marked to the specified destination. It maintains the original folder structure, so what you’ll see if you look in the destination location is a folder with the same name as your backup set. Inside that folder will normally be another series of folders that mirror the original folder hierarchy, and if you navigate down through these folders, you’ll find the files you just restored.

  Warning! Retrospect Desktop (though not Retrospect Express) has an option—enabled by default—to skip backing up the disk images used by FileVault, whether or not you’ve explicitly used a selector to exclude them. (To access this option, click the Options button in a script summary window, select FileVault in the list on the left, and make sure Don’t Back Up FileVault Sparseimages is checked.) Unfortunately, this currently prevents Retrospect from backing up any disk image that uses the “.sparseimage” format, including ones you’ve created manually. So if you have .sparseimage files that you want Retrospect to back up, be sure to uncheck that box.
  
  Note that this bug applies only to Backup (and Backup Server) script types; .sparseimage files are backed up during Duplicate scripts regardless of this setting.