[LarryB]

I am looking for a file copy program that will simply copy files without stopping to ask stupid questions or quitting in the middle of a job.

I use Windows Explorer now and drag and drop a bunch of folders from various computers to an external drive. Most of the time I am doing over 100,000 files and it takes 20minutes plus. The time is no problem because I just go off and do something else. The problem is when I come back after 20 minutes to see 5% done and a stupid question like “xxx is a system file... are your sure you want to copy”. Why can’t I answer these questions up front rather than having to wait 5 minutes between questions?



What is worse is when it hits something like a long or invalid file name or my virus checker pops up to tell me that one of the files is adware. Explorer stops and tells me the problem but when I click OK the program simply stops leaving me with the problem with having to figure out what files it did and did not copy. Is there a program that will remember and continue where it left off?

Thanks

[TriplexDread]

If i remember correctly DOS will allow you to copy all files from a directory without interruption m8

as long as you know where they are and where they are going


http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/klm/dosintro.html

[muckshifter]

Originally Posted by TriplexDread

If i remember correctly DOS will allow you to copy all files from a directory without interruption m8

as long as you know where they are and where they are going


http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/klm/dosintro.html

Hmmm, not a good idea TD, maybe back in the eighties, or if Larry is using Win95 or an OS before that, but XP, I take it's XP he is using, is not supposed to support "real" DOS, not forgetting you can only use 8 chars before the file gets truncated.

I would try one of the more "helpful" back-up programs ...

[TriplexDread]

fair point mucks thankyou!

[Techy]

simplest and one of the best copying apps. try robocopy. it's a free CLI based tool. I use it all the time on production networks and haven't had an issue to date.

[LarryB]

I do have Windows XP and have tried using their pseudo DOS. It still stops dead when it it hits long or invalid file names plus a host of other errors. One time it stopped at about 50% and told me my floppy drive was write protected (the computer has no floppy drive). I know that I should do a CHKDSK and a full virus scan before each backup but now we are talking about a normal 20 minute task turning into a 4 hour task per computer. I am not the system administartor just a data cruncher. All file back up utilities I have tried take the files and stuff them into one big file which means I have to do another 20 minute extraction when I get back to my computer to do my work. There may be one that will do a file to file copy with a nice front end that will handle problems without dying. That is my question.

[LarryB]

Sorry Techy. You must of posted while I was responding to above. I will try Robocopy and let you know.