Just two weeks after EMC began shipping Retrospect 8.0, the newest version of their long-neglected and much-maligned backup software for Macintosh, a catastrophic bug was found which can accidentally erase any data stored within a multi-tape library.

The issue wasn’t reported in the Retrospect Knowledge Base or even the Retrospect Twitter Feed, nor was it emailed to registered Retrospect 8 users. If you happened to be lurking on Retrospect’s support forums, however, you’d find their handy Alert for Tape Library Users posted April 3rd.

According to the notice, “When highlighting a group of tape slots or a magazine and clicking Erase, EMC Retrospect 8.0 incorrectly sends the Erase All command, commanding the tape library to erase all the tapes contained in the library, instead of only those tapes in the group/magazine”. They suggest that instead, you erase each tape individually, or remove any tapes you don’t want erased from your loader.

So if you’re thinking about upgrading to Retrospect 8, you might want to wait until this (and a host of less catastrophic issues) have been resolved.

Update: This issue was addressed in Retrospect 8.0.608. We’d recommend you update immediately to use Retrospect 8 safely.