A number of factors may intervene with successful periodic backups of your computer. I'll discuss software failures and missed backups within the next two sections and a variety of other issues within the Frequesntly Asked Questions section.

Microsoft Windows updates and firewalls

You may have to set a firewall exception if you have recently updated your computer's operating system:

• Changing Windows Firewall settings to allow Retrospect to run backups after installing Windows XP SP2

Software failure

Under some circumstances, the backups software will simply fail to load or run on your computer. In most cases, such failures are not total, and the software will attempt to communicate the problem to via an alert. You may always confirm the status of your backup software via the Status pane of your Retrospect Client control panel itself. In case of a failure, the alert or the status report should be descriptive enough for you to remedy the problem. Should you wish our assistance, simply submit a problem report.

No backups

You may set the preferences of your backup software to alert you in case of missed backups. You may also peruse the History pane of your Retrospect Client control panel to find information about the last few execution events. Should the software appear to be operational but actual backups lacking, please try these few options to diagnose and remedy the problem:

1. First make sure that your software is properly installed and activated.
2. Recollect whether your computer is actually turned on during periods of scheduled backups. You likely chose a backup schedule while submitting an activation request. You may change or confirm your backup schedule via the general request form.
3. Confirm that your computer is properly networked. If your other network based applications like mail clients, web browsers, and the Chooser (on Macs) work as expected, your network is likely fine.

Frequently Asked Questions

I installed everything as requested and restarted my computer, but the software fails to load. What else do I have to do?

A frequent trapdoor under MacOS involved personalisation information for your computer. If you see an error message such as Retrospect Client INIT not loaded at system startup with a status explanation of No Macintosh name or Owner name specified in Sharing Setup, you'll have to name your computer and enter some other personal information in your Sharing Setup control panel and restart again. For more information on this issued, please take a look at our Personal File Sharing FAQ.

Do I need to notify you when I add new drives to my computer or change the names of my drives?

No, our current software will automatically find and back up all drives present during each backup session. Thus, you do not have to worry about changing your drives as often as you wish. The software will also automatically ignore mounted server volumes and read-only media like CD ROMs. Also, you may always designate a particular drive to be skipped via the access preferences.

What software may conflict with my backups?

Current versions of pretty much all software deployed at Life Sciences interoperate smoothly. However, older versions of the AfterDark screen saver may cause problems even with the latest release of the client backup software. And even the latest release of AfterDark will prevent a backup of your computer should you use the password feature and your machine is thus locked when the server polls your computer. AfterDark is generally an unfriendly piece of code regardless of backups, and we recommend that you switch either to DarkSide or to the built-in Energy Saver software that arrives with all newer Macs. DarkSide is available on our file server and from Info-Mac, or you may access the built-in software via the Energy Saver control panel, if it is installed. The benefits of the latter include actual energy saving features as it turns off components of your computer; the drawback is the boring blank screen.

How secure is my data?

You may find your data compromised in two ways: Someone stealing packets directly off the network as we back up your computer and someone stealing the data cartridges after we back up your computer. We may address the first concern by encrypting the data as it travels over the network. The second is not as much of a concern as our office is protected by a security system and the alarm is generally active if the office is vacant. We also keep older cartridges similarly secured or stored in a secret remote location. There is a way to encrypt data on the cartridges and thus make them unreadable should they be stolen; however, both network and cartridge data encryption compromise the speed and efficieny of our server. Keeping efficiency paramount, we've disabled encryption. Should you wish your data protected, we'll be glad to discuss alternatives; simply send us a request.

Could I add my home machine to Life Sciences network backups?

Due to excrutiatingly slow link speeds of most most modems and even ISDN, such a request is simply not realistic. However, you may always periodically transfer crucial data to your work computer, which we will back up. You may either use data synchronisation utilities like PowerMerge or ferry a Zip or a Jaz cartridge between the two computers.