Dear members:

While in the process of making back-up copies of my applications' CDs and
DVDs I was surprised by a message from Retrospect stating that if I
proceeded to duplicate the disk with the option "Ignore Ownership" checked
important files would not be copied that allowed the duplicate to be
bootable.

Do any of you have experience with using Retrospect to duplicate CDs and
DVDs ? Is this just a standard warning meant for duplicates of drives that
have the operating system installed and that should be bootable copies ? Or
could this affect my back-up copies ?

I would prefer to leave the option "Ignore Ownership" checked as it is my
understanding that it would allow the disk to be read by other computers
instead of only mine. Is this right ? Could my back-up copies become
corrupted or unusable if I leave the "Ignore Ownership" box checked ?

A member of another forum has brought to my attention that while Retrospect
is a good application for backing your system or any drive, it is not
necessarily the most ideal one to use when making copies of CDs or DVDs.
Another issue would be related to copy protection or encryption that may
render the copies of these CDs and/or DVDs non-usable.

From your own experiences what is the best application available (commercial
or freeware) to copy CDs and DVDs that will allow me to make copies of my
programs in a way that the final copies will be identical to the originals ?

I would prefer an application that would also allow me to duplicate the
programs to disk images I can keep in my hard drive if I decide to do so.

Thank you in advance for your help,

Joseph Chamberlain

"Joseph Chamberlain, DDS" <drjchamberlain@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> While in the process of making back-up copies of my applications' CDs
> and DVDs I was surprised by a message from Retrospect stating that if
> I proceeded to duplicate the disk with the option "Ignore Ownership"
> checked important files would not be copied that allowed the duplicate
> to be bootable.
>
> Do any of you have experience with using Retrospect to duplicate CDs
> and DVDs ? Is this just a standard warning meant for duplicates of
> drives that have the operating system installed and that should be
> bootable copies ? Or could this affect my back-up copies ?

Retrospect is not a disc duplication program. It is a backup program.
It will copy the disc on a file-by-file basis. The result will not be
even close to an image of the original disc. If you want to copy a
non-data disc, you really want to use a different program.

As for the warning, you don't want to turn that option off. You want
the files on the copy to have the same ownership as the files on the
original media.

The only reason you'd want to discard ownership is if the files are
owned by accounts that you know won't exist on the target system.

> I would prefer to leave the option "Ignore Ownership" checked as it is
> my understanding that it would allow the disk to be read by other
> computers instead of only mine. Is this right ? Could my back-up
> copies become corrupted or unusable if I leave the "Ignore Ownership"
> box checked ?

If the CD/DVD is a data disc and was properly mastered in the first
place, then it shouldn't be using any permissions that could cause a
problem. Ignoring ownership should not be necessary.

> A member of another forum has brought to my attention that while
> Retrospect is a good application for backing your system or any drive,
> it is not necessarily the most ideal one to use when making copies of
> CDs or DVDs. Another issue would be related to copy protection or
> encryption that may render the copies of these CDs and/or DVDs
> non-usable.

All correct.

If you try to copy and audio CD or a video DVD, you'll end up with a
data disc containing files, not an audio/video disc.

> From your own experiences what is the best application available
> (commercial or freeware) to copy CDs and DVDs that will allow me to
> make copies of my programs in a way that the final copies will be
> identical to the originals ?

If the source disc is not copy protected, you can use Roxio's Toast. It
should work on almost anything your drive can read. (One notable
exception being karaoke discs - the graphics don't get copied, producing
an audio disc.)

If it is copy protected (like commercially-pressed video DVDs) then
you'll have to find some program to rip it into a decrypted disc image.
Then you can use any number of programs to burn that image to a new
disc.

If your source is a data disc, you may prefer to just drag/drop the
files to a directory on your hard drive and then burn a new disc from
the files using Toast or the Finder.

> I would prefer an application that would also allow me to duplicate
> the programs to disk images I can keep in my hard drive if I decide to
> do so.

Toast can rip discs to image files, if that's what you want.

-- David

"Joseph Chamberlain, DDS" <drjchamberlain@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> While in the process of making back-up copies of my applications' CDs
> and DVDs I was surprised by a message from Retrospect stating that if
> I proceeded to duplicate the disk with the option "Ignore Ownership"
> checked important files would not be copied that allowed the duplicate
> to be bootable.
>
> Do any of you have experience with using Retrospect to duplicate CDs
> and DVDs ? Is this just a standard warning meant for duplicates of
> drives that have the operating system installed and that should be
> bootable copies ? Or could this affect my back-up copies ?

Retrospect is not a disc duplication program. It is a backup program.
It will copy the disc on a file-by-file basis. The result will not be
even close to an image of the original disc. If you want to copy a
non-data disc, you really want to use a different program.

As for the warning, you don't want to turn that option off. You want
the files on the copy to have the same ownership as the files on the
original media.

The only reason you'd want to discard ownership is if the files are
owned by accounts that you know won't exist on the target system.

> I would prefer to leave the option "Ignore Ownership" checked as it is
> my understanding that it would allow the disk to be read by other
> computers instead of only mine. Is this right ? Could my back-up
> copies become corrupted or unusable if I leave the "Ignore Ownership"
> box checked ?

If the CD/DVD is a data disc and was properly mastered in the first
place, then it shouldn't be using any permissions that could cause a
problem. Ignoring ownership should not be necessary.

> A member of another forum has brought to my attention that while
> Retrospect is a good application for backing your system or any drive,
> it is not necessarily the most ideal one to use when making copies of
> CDs or DVDs. Another issue would be related to copy protection or
> encryption that may render the copies of these CDs and/or DVDs
> non-usable.

All correct.

If you try to copy and audio CD or a video DVD, you'll end up with a
data disc containing files, not an audio/video disc.

> From your own experiences what is the best application available
> (commercial or freeware) to copy CDs and DVDs that will allow me to
> make copies of my programs in a way that the final copies will be
> identical to the originals ?

If the source disc is not copy protected, you can use Roxio's Toast. It
should work on almost anything your drive can read. (One notable
exception being karaoke discs - the graphics don't get copied, producing
an audio disc.)

If it is copy protected (like commercially-pressed video DVDs) then
you'll have to find some program to rip it into a decrypted disc image.
Then you can use any number of programs to burn that image to a new
disc.

If your source is a data disc, you may prefer to just drag/drop the
files to a directory on your hard drive and then burn a new disc from
the files using Toast or the Finder.

> I would prefer an application that would also allow me to duplicate
> the programs to disk images I can keep in my hard drive if I decide to
> do so.

Toast can rip discs to image files, if that's what you want.

-- David