Retrospect 8.x for Macintosh Optical Support

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How to enable optical device support in Retrospect 8

To use an optical drive with Retrospect 8.1, you will need to edit the following file with a text editor (such as TextEdit):

1. Go to Macintosh Hard Disk > Library Folder > Application Support folder > Retrospect Folder.
2. Open the retro.ini file using TextEdit.
3. Add the following:
4. [Devices]

DisableOpticalDrivers=0

1. Save the file and restart the Retrospect engine using the Retrospect System Preferences pane.

Note that Retrospect may not be able to see an optical drive that has already been captured for use by VMware Fusion or Parallels.

How to tell if your optical device is supported by Retrospect 8

Retrospect 8 includes support for many optical devices, including most Macs' built-in SuperDrives, but not all. If your drive is not supported by Retrospect 8 "out of the box," it is likely that you will be able to easily configure Retrospect for your drive with its Optical Configurator.

After enabling optical device support as described above, you can tell whether or not your drive is supported by Retrospect 8 by looking at its entry in the Storage Devices view. If the entry for your optical drive has a disclosure triangle visible between the green check mark in the leftmost column and the name of the device, then Retrospect 8 already supports your drive, and you may use it for backups. Clicking this disclosure triangle will show what media, if any, is presently loaded in your optical drive.

If your device is missing the disclosure triangle to the left of its name, then you will have to run the Optical Configurator prior to using the device for backups. You will need to run the Configurator for each type of media that you plan to use (for example, DVD+RW dual-layer, DVD+R, etc.), and each test will require the use of a blank piece of media.

To run the Optical Configurator:

1. Control/right-click on the device to be configured, and choose Create CD Configuration from the pop-up menu. (Note: "CD" should really say "Optical"; this is a bug in v8.1.)
2. Click on Activities in the sidebar and highlight the Running Custom Configuration activity in the list view.
3. Insert blank media when the request appears in the detail view for the configuration activity.
4. Allow the test to run to completion. The higher the media capacity, the longer the test will take to complete. Please give Retrospect time to finish.
5. After the configuration test has completed, Retrospect should present a disclosure triangle next to the name of your device, and it will then be able to run backup activities using this optical device.

Last Update: February 13, 2012