Customer Reviews

Dantz Retrospect 7 Professional

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

After reading the less-than-winning reviews by others, I tried several less expensive alternatives - with less than stellar results. So I tested the Retrospect trial version that came with my Dell. I was impressed - so much so that I shelled out close to a C-note. And believe me, after once having suffered an unrecoverable crash, it's worth the peace of mind.

If nothing else, the software comes with a well-written and illustrated printed manual (a rarity these days), and an equally lucid help section. True, some of the terms are arcane ('progressive' backup) and some are needlessly brought into play (like 'snapshots'). Yet the package does very well for beginners with it's outstanding wizards -- if you are willing to read just the introductory chapter to get familiar with the terminology.

The pervasive ease-of-use fell short only in the vital 'Disaster Recovery' section: 1) nowadays most PC's ship with a manufacturer-specific Windows reinstallation disc that is 'unreadable' to the Retrospect media handler; how to create a disc image from the hard drive should have been geared more to the beginner; 2) totally unclear is how to make a bootable CD/DVD from the image; it would have saved me a lot of grief if the manual had only made it clear that the disc image is created in bootable format. That said, and realizing that few big-name computers ship with the original Windows installation disc, the company ought to have created yet another wizard so as to burn the disc image direct to a disc. I'm sure many users would be put off by the (totally unnecessary) extra step of having to exit Retrospect, then switch to another package to burn the Recovery disc image to a CD/DVD.

With that caveat in mind, this is a solid, fast, highly reliable and well-documented piece of software. And, not the least, the Dantz company gives every indication of success - and thus the comforting reassurance that they'll be around for many years. Further, the website is informative and up-to-date, and the tech desk responds promptly and patiently. Retrospect fully earns its top-notch recommendations by PC-mag and PC-world.

It is rare that I find a piece of software that actually does what it is supposed to do. Retrospect-7 is that piece of software.

I have 32 years in the IT field and work at it just as hard at home on my own projects as I do on the job. As a result, my home-based, primary workstation is a highly volatile computer system from all the work and implementations performed on it. I have no time for crashed systems or the variety of software tools that claim they can restore a system without a "re-installation".

When a virus corrupted my boot sector I had no choice but to go to my backup system. It is the only thing you can do once the boot sector has been damaged. Using Retrospect-7 after re-installing a clean version of Windows-2000 w\SP4, I re-catalogued my backup and set it for an overnight restore. The next morning my system was back up, alive, and ready to go without a single problem.

True, Retrospect-7 is not for the end-user. And, there are times when the user-created boot-cd won't work as a result of the type of problem that is being worked on for resolution. It did not work for me. It is a technician's tool with presentations a technician can understand. And it's excellent manual, which can be easily obtained from Dantz Corporation's web-site, demonstrates alternative procedures for when things don't go the way they should. And these procedures work.

If you want to buy this product I couldn't recommend it more highly. However, to use it most successfully simply follow my steps outlined below for a system crash:

1) Backup YOUR ENTIRE SYSTEM OFTEN using a
successive\grandfather strategy

2) When a system crash occurs, skip the alternative nonsense
that software-only tools tout. You are going to most likely
just waste your time. Software today is too complex for a
software-only solution anymore.

3) re-install a clean version of Windows with the corresponding
service-pack that was installed during your backup
processes.

4) Re-install your Retrospect software.

5) Re-Catalogue the backup-set you plan to restore from, if
necessary.

6) Initiate the Retrospect restore process and select
"Rollback Everything" so you get all system settings and
files as well as your own files.

7) GO TO BED and wake up to a re-built system!!!

By the way, if you are using VCOM's "System Commander", Retrospect will take care of that as well if it was part of your back up process.

If you are a Windows user as I am, a crashed system is unavoidable due to all the viruses and worms out in Cyberspace. "Retospect Pro" is the best way I know how to protect myself from them.

This product performed well on two different systems where another well regarded piece of software wouldn't. It was easy to install and I have been using it for weekly backups on my two home systems for the last month. It comes with a very extensive manual, but I was able to install and use it with only a little reading from it.

This is a solid full feature backup software for home and small business. Due to all the features and flexibility of the software it's not easy to understand for computer adverse people. If you have difficulty understanding how to configure your computer and network through your control panel this product is too difficult for you.
I've set this up on a older computer not used very much with a 200Gb hard drive on a network. Installed client software on all the other computers that I want backed up. Mapped the computers and created restore discs in case of hard drive crash (especially laptops since it's crashed twice). I also created several restore points of my main computer so that I don't have to worry of installing new softwares or trial softwares. Great feature of this software is it will copy all files of a system even if it's locked and running.
If any of the system starts to slow down significantly, trial software installs spyware/rootkit or causes system instability I just restore the entire hard drive. I do the same with the kid's computer since they're constantly downloading and installing games.
Other files such as My Document folders and images I've identified separatly and are backed up at a set schedule. Rest of the operating system and software does not have to be backed up as often. Software works great and very fast even over the network. It can also back up files you have open and working on. Backing up first time takes bit longer but it's still faster than drag-and-drop over the network. After the first backup only new and changed files are backed up.
Again, I would only recommend this product to someone who's comfortable around computers and understand some basics on back-up, why there's multiple backup sets, how to map network computers, etc. It can be installed and used as a single computer backup but you wouldn't use so much of it's capability. Plus there's cheaper and simple software out there that can do single computer file backup.
Great software with lot's of heavy duty feature but maybe to difficult for a computer newbie.

Folks - be very careful buying Retrospect backup software.

This stuff is not for kids!

The documentation is every compicated and the support material - help stuff is written for IT professionals, not the average user.

I am a experienced computer user with multiple computers, I can rebuild a computer, install networks, install network printers, setup outlook and have multiple computers. But the support stuff written on the Retrospect - Dantz web site is written strictly for IT professional and is almost of no value to a regular user.

You get 30 days worth of free support but plan to use up a ton of cell minutes waiting on hold. My first support call, (because the down load file i got when i purchased on line would not launch)- I was on hold for over 60 minutes.

If I can, I am going to try to get my money back as this stuff is way to complicated.

Here is just one example of support info directions fromm the help web site:

In a default system install (out of the box), the Dell hard drives have a 31MB FAT partition (EISA Configuaration). This partition does not have a drive letter and does not get backed up by Retrospect. As a result, if the C: drive is re-formatted during a Disaster Recovery, this 31MB partition is lost. The boot.ini file contained on the backup (and later restored) references two partitions rather then just one.

To work around this problem:

1. Install Windows 2000 or XP

2. Install Retrospect

3. Find or recreate the Backup Set catalog file (no clue what this is or where it is)

4. Within Windows Explorer show hidden files ? Tools> Folder Options> View>

Check: Show Hidden files and folders

Unckeck: Hide extensions for known file types and Hide protected operating system files

5. Locate the boot.ini file on the hard disk. Make a copy of the boot.ini file to floppy disk

6. Launch Retrospect

7. Run Restore Entire Volume

8. Before Reboot, replace the restored the boot.ini file on C: with the one from the floppy disk.

9. Reboot.

I upgraded to Retrospect 7 Professional from Retrospect Express 6 that came packaged free with a Maxtor hard drive. The Express version couldn't back up to DVD's. The new version I got didn't include a printed manual which would be sorely needed in case of a crash. I had to print my own from the included pdf file.
The manual is necessary in using Retrospect since the program really isn't self explanatory. But making backups of your system is fairly easy if you follow the instructions. My DVD burner was listed on their web site as compatible but I still had to configure it in order for Retrospect to use it.
Disaster Recovery involves making your own emergency CD that includes Windows start-up information which seems to be a good idea.
Compared to Norton Ghost, this program seems more complicated.

Okay, let's start with some basic facts. First, I had a computer professional working with me. Second, I'm pretty computer literate and I like computers. I'm a lawyer so between the two of us you had two overeducated people who should have been able to configure this software to work for my XP workgroup (which means buying the basic program and several extra client licenses).
Noooo.
Many, many hours and attempts later, I was unable to get the software to run a weekly backup script successfully twice, even after talking to tech support, which by the way, was hard to get (we waited over an hour once and gave up). You get only 30 days of free tech support, which if I planned to keep this horrible product, makes me shudder. But everything about the user interface is overly complex and counter-intuitive.
You think you've set up a backup successfully, and you haven't, or you've set up a backup of far more than you intended. Tech support has to show you things which are not in the documentation and which don't seem to work a second time. And if you have to uninstall the software from one of your client machines for any reason, you have to start from scratch on the main machine, a huge chore. Every time the program runs, if you are backing up to a DVD, it insists on erasing the DVD, even if the DVD is brand new or you just erased it with another program, and it takes forever and tends to get hung up at this point. I grew old attempting over and over again to get this app configured correctly. I tried to give it fair chance. I spent about 40 hours working with it. I was determined to make it work. But I could not make it work properly. Now let's talk about restoring. I had occasion to attempt to use the one backup which executed to try to restore some files to my desktop on which I just had to reformat the hard drive. Huge numbers of errors were logged, claiming my brand new Plextor had a dirty head. When I tried again, a different number of errors occurred. (This happened during backups too.) I'm not buying that this is a problem with the high-quality media I used, not when it didn't run the same way twice. This is just a badly designed, impenetrable, funky piece of software and I urge you with all my heart to BUY SOMETHING ELSE.

I found this product to be very well done. It is a bit of overkill for a home user, but well worth the price. I would recomend it to any user from home user on up.

Most importantly, USE DVDs to back-up - took way too long & more than 25 CDs. And, now, I'm kind of lost of how and when to edit or update my back-up. I was prompted by David Lawrence (WGN radio) to purchase & install, but for a home personal computer, I think that this is just too much. The $$$ was a bit high, but the labor, CDS, time and confusion was just WAY TOO HIGH. Not real satisfied. Linda Hoffman, Mokena, Illinois

This well-rated product did not work with my computer; I tried to use it with my Roxio CD/DVD Disk Drive but to no avail. After installing and uninstalling the software twice,and having a computer engineer assist me, the program was still unoperable with my computer. I decided to use another method for hard-drive backup.