File Backup Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gordon Biggar
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Gordon Biggar

I occasionally (every 3 months) back up my hard drives (I am using three
computers, all similarly configured) to an external storage device. I tend
to back up the My Documents folders somewhat more frequently (monthly). My
two desktops are Vista 64s, and the laptop is a Vista 32-bit. I use the
laptop as the master, so to speak, and will occasionally update the My
Documents folders of the desktops from this machine.

As one might expect, I sometimes overwrite the same file on the desktops
with an older file from the laptop. What I would really like is an easy to
use piece of software that updates a file only if it is newer (later time
stamp) than what is being updated. This would run much more quickly, and
also prevent me from overwriting newer files.

Gordon Biggar
Houston, Texas
 
I occasionally (every 3 months) back up my hard drives (I am using three
computers, all similarly configured) to an external storage device. I tend
to back up the My Documents folders somewhat more frequently (monthly). My
two desktops are Vista 64s, and the laptop is a Vista 32-bit. I use the
laptop as the master, so to speak, and will occasionally update the My
Documents folders of the desktops from this machine.

As one might expect, I sometimes overwrite the same file on the desktops
with an older file from the laptop. What I would really like is an easy to
use piece of software that updates a file only if it is newer (later time
stamp) than what is being updated. This would run much more quickly, and
also prevent me from overwriting newer files.

Gordon Biggar
Houston, Texas
Click to expand...

robocopy, which is part of Windows now. It's a command line app.

robocpy is supposed to stand for Robust Copy, not robocop...and it's
complicated, but tends not to overwrite older files.
 
What I would really like is an easy to use piece of software that
updates a file only if it is newer (later time stamp) than what is
being updated. This would run much more quickly, and also prevent
me from overwriting newer files.
Click to expand...

Look for the Microsoft utility Robocopy. It's a command line copy
utility that has very flexible options regarding that kind of thing.
I's not super easy to use, but I think it will do your job better
than most anything else.
 
robocopy, which is part of Windows now. It's a command line app.
Click to expand...

I believe you're right! I find it on my Vista computer, but I don't
remember ever installing it there. Good move on MS's part.
 
robocopy, which is part of Windows now. It's a command line app.

robocpy is supposed to stand for Robust Copy, not robocop...and it's
complicated, but tends not to overwrite older files.
Click to expand...

For a somewhat easier to use program, look into RichCopy 4.0. It's
free, basically Robocopy with a graphical interface. Actually, I
prefer to use Robocopy (which I use daily, with batch files to
generate the command line commands), but some prefer RichCopy.
 
For a somewhat easier to use program, look into RichCopy 4.0. It's
free, basically Robocopy with a graphical interface. Actually, I
prefer to use Robocopy (which I use daily, with batch files to
generate the command line commands), but some prefer RichCopy.
Click to expand...

Beware! Richcopy is quite buggy. Some of is options do NOT work as
advertised. I forget if the overwrite options are among the non-
working, but if you try it, be very careful! It is a whole lot faster
than Robocopy, but it might not be worth it if it stomps on your data.
 
I believe you're right! I find it on my Vista computer, but I don't
remember ever installing it there. Good move on MS's part.
Click to expand...

It's evidently been around for a few years, but I only became fully aware
of it a few days ago. I vaguely knew such a thing existed, but I didn't
know that it was now built in and I didn't know its name. Google helped.

Handy when I want to back up a camera SD card without rewriting all the
files that are already backed up (that's what motivated me to track it
down). It has many other uses, of course.
 
Nil said:
Look for the Microsoft utility Robocopy. It's a command line copy
utility that has very flexible options regarding that kind of thing.
I's not super easy to use, but I think it will do your job better
than most anything else.
Click to expand...
I use XCOPY with the /D option in a bat file.

Jim
 
Jim said:
I use XCOPY with the /D option in a bat file.

Jim
Click to expand...
You may want to look into a program called 'SyncBackSE'. It
is a great piece of software with excellent support. I am
just a user that uses it to synchronize files between two
laptop computers over a network.

David
 
There certainly appears to be a lot of support for the ROBOCOPY utility!

Naturally, I tried it and struck out immediately. I tried to copy the Excel
Files folder from within the Documents folder as a test to a flash drive. I
used the following command line (with F: as the location of the flash drive
in the USB port):

ROBOCOPY C:\Documents\Excel Files\ F: /MIR

The system came back and said that it couldn't find the source directory.
I'm wondering whether we are back to eight-letter file name designations?

Also, if I were to restore eventually from an external drive, will the
program overwrite all files that I have on the hard drive, regardless of
time stamp?

Thanks for all of the individual responses.

Gordon
 
There certainly appears to be a lot of support for the ROBOCOPY utility!

Naturally, I tried it and struck out immediately. I tried to copy the Excel
Files folder from within the Documents folder as a test to a flash drive. I
used the following command line (with F: as the location of the flash drive
in the USB port):

ROBOCOPY C:\Documents\Excel Files\ F: /MIR

The system came back and said that it couldn't find the source directory.
I'm wondering whether we are back to eight-letter file name designations?

Also, if I were to restore eventually from an external drive, will the
program overwrite all files that I have on the hard drive, regardless of
time stamp?

Thanks for all of the individual responses.

Gordon
Click to expand...

Gordon,

I think the problem is the space in the folder name "Excel Files". Try
renaming that folder "Excel-Files" and then try the command.

Also, I find it useful to add a couple of additional switches, namely
/R:1 and /W:1. So my command would read:

Robocopy C:\Documents\Excel-files F: /MIR /R:1 /W:1

or

Robocopy C:\Documents\Excel-files\ F:\ /MIR /R:1 /W:1

The trailing backslash doesn't seem to make a difference, but XXCOPY
recommends it, so I use it when I can remember to do so.

Type "Help Robocopy" from the command line to see what all the
available switches do.
 
There certainly appears to be a lot of support for the ROBOCOPY utility!

Naturally, I tried it and struck out immediately.  I tried to copy the Excel
Files folder from within the Documents folder as a test to a flash drive. I
used the following command line (with F: as the location of the flash drive
in the USB port):

ROBOCOPY C:\Documents\Excel Files\ F: /MIR

The system came back and said that it couldn't find the source directory.
I'm wondering whether we are back to eight-letter file name designations?

Also, if I were to restore eventually from an external drive, will the
program overwrite all files that I have on the hard drive, regardless of
time stamp?

Thanks for all of the individual responses.

Gordon








- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

The problem is the embbeded blank. No need to remane though, simply
put quotes around it:

ROBOCOPY "C:\Documents\Excel Files\" F: /MIR
 
System came back with No Destination Directory Specified.

For some reason, it doesn't seem to recognize the quotation mark in front of
the C:\

Gordon
 
Did you use a pair of double quotes, one in front of the C and one after
the end of the source path? Did you leave a space before the name of the
destination directory? Have you tried putting a slash after the F:?
 
Yes to all of your questions.

The DOS commentary, after attempting to run, shows the correct source path
(but only with a quotation mark at the end of the path). It does not show a
quotation mark in front of the C:\. It cannot locate the destination path,
probably because the program must be looking for an ending quotation mark at
the end of the destination path.

I managed to get around the source path issue, because the program wants me
to start with C:\Users\Computer Name\Documents\Temp. (The Temp folder is
the fifth under Documents, and I chose it because of the short name.) By
excluding the quotes, the program will run, but it ignores the request to
copy the contents of the Temp directory, and starts with the first directory
listed under Documents (which happens to be Excel Files). There is
something in the source path that the program doesn't like!

All very strange...

Gordon
 
System came back with No Destination Directory Specified.

For some reason, it doesn't seem to recognize the quotation mark in frontof
the C:\

Gordon








- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

Sorry, I gave you the wrong example... I forgot to strip the trailing
\. You have to remove the \ at the end of your source path:

ROBOCOPY "C:\Documents\Excel Files" F: /MIR


Otherwise you'll get a "No Destination Directory Specified" error and
it will echo the source path with the trailing quote.
 
Yes, very strange. Obviously, I'm groping in the dark...

Could you copy and paste so as to post your various commands (*exactly* as
you typed them) in a response in this thread? Maybe someone will see
something that you missed, and that we didn't get from the descriptions.

If you don't know how to get command lines into a file, ask here - and if
you do, I didn't mean to offend, but I didn't want to assume too much :-)
 
I occasionally (every 3 months) back up my hard drives (I am using three
computers, all similarly configured) to an external storage device. I tend
to back up the My Documents folders somewhat more frequently (monthly). My
two desktops are Vista 64s, and the laptop is a Vista 32-bit. I use the
laptop as the master, so to speak, and will occasionally update the My
Documents folders of the desktops from this machine.

As one might expect, I sometimes overwrite the same file on the desktops
with an older file from the laptop. What I would really like is an easy to
use piece of software that updates a file only if it is newer (later time
stamp) than what is being updated. This would run much more quickly, and
also prevent me from overwriting newer files.
Click to expand...


I use SyncToy FREE from MS:-

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52&displaylang=en
 
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