How do I move a directory tree?

[Guest]

I have a directory tree (i.e. a nested set of folders), containing folders
and subfolders to a depth of perhaps 6 or more levels, altogether nearly
20,000 files in about 13,000 folders. I am trying to move this entire tree
from one hard disk to another. I have clicked off the "read only" attribute
in the Properties box of the top directory (I understand that this does not
change the read-only attribute of this folder or of any folders, only of the
files contained within the folders). I click "apply" and a progress bar
tells me that the permission changes are being applied to all the files in
the tree.

But when I go to move the top folder to another drive (using either
drag&drop or cut&paste) I get this message: Error Moving File or Folder.
Cannot move file:

I take it that that final colon is telling me that Windows can't (or won"t)
tell me the name of the specific offending file or files.

It is not practical to go through all these files and try to find the one
whose r/w permissions were not (for some inexplicable reason) changed by the
process I have just described.

So what do I do now, short of going through all the thousand of files and
folders and moving them one by one?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

Ben

 

[John John]

Use Robocopy.exe for the task.
http://search.microsoft.com/results.aspx?q=robocopy&l=1&mkt=en-US&FORM=QBME4

John

 

[Zilbandy]

But when I go to move the top folder to another drive (using either
drag&drop or cut&paste) I get this message: Error Moving File or Folder.
Cannot move file:

Copy the tree to the new drive first. Then, if necessary, restart in
safe mode and delete the old location. This location doesn't include
the Windows folder, does it? That's not gonna work if it does.

 

[Guest]

Copy the tree to the new drive first

I get the analogous error message when I try to copy:

"cannot copy file:"

Thanks anyway!
Ben