I forgot the command....

[casey.o]

Damnit, I'm moving a whole backup of around 200gigs to another drive.
This will take several hours. I started it and went to sleep, expecting
it to be done when I woke up. No, I woke up and found it had only
copied around 8% of it, because it was stuck on one of those stupid
questions. "Do you really want to move this hidden file"? Do you
really want to move this .EXE file", or system
file, or whatever.....

I'm just using Windows Explorer (XP). It seems to me there is a means
to force it to move everything without asking stupid questions. Seems
there is some command I need to add, but I cant recall what it is...

In other words, "JUST F**KING MOVE THE FILES AS I INSTRUCTED, WITHOUT
ASKING STUPID QUESTIONS".

Anyone?

Thanks

 

[Paul]

Damnit, I'm moving a whole backup of around 200gigs to another drive.
This will take several hours. I started it and went to sleep, expecting
it to be done when I woke up. No, I woke up and found it had only
copied around 8% of it, because it was stuck on one of those stupid
questions. "Do you really want to move this hidden file"? Do you
really want to move this .EXE file", or system
file, or whatever.....

I'm just using Windows Explorer (XP). It seems to me there is a means
to force it to move everything without asking stupid questions. Seems
there is some command I need to add, but I cant recall what it is...

In other words, "JUST F**KING MOVE THE FILES AS I INSTRUCTED, WITHOUT
ASKING STUPID QUESTIONS".

Anyone?

Thanks

Funny, that's never a problem for me with Robocopy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy

"Therefore Robocopy is not useful for backing
up live operating system volumes [C:]."

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2006.11.utilityspotlight.aspx

It's about a 1MB download.

The file "_54ECED6107F5477E80212C764531DDF6" is the actual
212992 byte robocopy command line program (you can find that
in there with 7-ZIP). The GUI that comes with the installer,
attempts to make it more friendly. I never installed the GUI,
and just use the command line.

robocopy E:\ F:\ /mir /copy:datso /dcopy:t /r:3 /w:2 /zb /np /tee /v /log:robocopy_e_to_f.log

That copies partition E: to partition F:. Anything which cannot
be copied (like a "trash can") gets skipped. The log file
contained a complete record of what was done. Since that command
is running in "Mirror" mode, it is very dangerous. Make sure before
beginning a run, of the drive letter names. I made a mistake
once, by assuming a drive letter hadn't changed, and selected
the wrong target partition. You could try something other than
Mirror mode if you want.

Total Copied Skipped Mismatch FAILED Extras
Dirs : 6947 6945 2 0 0 0
Files : 56636 56634 2 0 0 0
Bytes : 22.237 g 17.238 g 4.999 g 0 0 0
Times : 0:05:19 0:04:08 0:00:00 0:01:10

Speed : 74434107 Bytes/sec.
Speed : 4259.153 MegaBytes/min.

The reason that log has 4.999GB of files skipped, is the
pagefile and hiberfile were copied separately. And the copy
tool doesn't do any unnecessary work that was already done.
Since I copied the files just before running Robocopy, I
know the skipped files are things already completed. I move
a pagefile first, so it's near the beginning of the partition.

HTH,
Paul

 

[casey.o]

Funny, that's never a problem for me with Robocopy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy

"Therefore Robocopy is not useful for backing
up live operating system volumes [C:]."

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2006.11.utilityspotlight.aspx

It's about a 1MB download.

The file "_54ECED6107F5477E80212C764531DDF6" is the actual
212992 byte robocopy command line program (you can find that
in there with 7-ZIP). The GUI that comes with the installer,
attempts to make it more friendly. I never installed the GUI,
and just use the command line.

robocopy E:\ F:\ /mir /copy:datso /dcopy:t /r:3 /w:2 /zb /np /tee /v /log:robocopy_e_to_f.log

That copies partition E: to partition F:. Anything which cannot
be copied (like a "trash can") gets skipped. The log file
contained a complete record of what was done. Since that command
is running in "Mirror" mode, it is very dangerous. Make sure before
beginning a run, of the drive letter names. I made a mistake
once, by assuming a drive letter hadn't changed, and selected
the wrong target partition. You could try something other than
Mirror mode if you want.

Total Copied Skipped Mismatch FAILED Extras
Dirs : 6947 6945 2 0 0 0
Files : 56636 56634 2 0 0 0
Bytes : 22.237 g 17.238 g 4.999 g 0 0 0
Times : 0:05:19 0:04:08 0:00:00 0:01:10

Speed : 74434107 Bytes/sec.
Speed : 4259.153 MegaBytes/min.

The reason that log has 4.999GB of files skipped, is the
pagefile and hiberfile were copied separately. And the copy
tool doesn't do any unnecessary work that was already done.
Since I copied the files just before running Robocopy, I
know the skipped files are things already completed. I move
a pagefile first, so it's near the beginning of the partition.

HTH,
Paul

So that's what Robocopy is for. I've seen it on oldapps.com. Never
knew what it was for. I'll have to try it....

Why do you copy your pagefile? When I backup Win2000 (drive D, while
booted to Win98 on C:, I just delete the pagefile before copying the D:
partition. When I boot up W2000, it always makes a new one anyhow. And
when I backup Win98, while booted to W2000, I always delete the swap
file from the Windows dir. I've deleted them forever. I think I ws
told to do that way back in Win95, or maybe Win3.x (DID Win3.x have one?
I cant remember).

I'm trying an experiment. I'm trying to install Windows 1.0 on a flash
drive, and see if I can get it to boot, one the one computer that I have
which has the ability to boot from a flash drive. I've never even seen
Win 1.0, but I got my hands on it, so I want to see what it was. Maybe
it wont even run on a Pentium 4, but I can try..... Otherwise I'll try
to install it on one of those 1 or 2 gig HDDs I have. The entire
installer fits on a 1.44 floppy, so installed it will probably be 3 or 4
megs at most. The file dates on it are all 1985. It's amazing to think
that in 28 years, Windows has gone from a 1.4meg installer to however
big Win8 is? (I know it wont fit on a CD anymore). At that rate, by
2020, Windows will probably require inserting 10 DVDs to install it....
and will need 1TB of drive space just for the OS. (unless they just plum
run out of ideas to add more bloat)....

 

[micky]

Damnit, I'm moving a whole backup of around 200gigs to another drive.
This will take several hours. I started it and went to sleep, expecting
it to be done when I woke up. No, I woke up and found it had only
copied around 8% of it, because it was stuck on one of those stupid
questions. "Do you really want to move this hidden file"? Do you
really want to move this .EXE file", or system
file, or whatever.....

I'm just using Windows Explorer (XP). It seems to me there is a means
to force it to move everything without asking stupid questions. Seems
there is some command I need to add, but I cant recall what it is...

In other words, "JUST F**KING MOVE THE FILES AS I INSTRUCTED, WITHOUT
ASKING STUPID QUESTIONS".

Anyone?

Thanks

You can also do this with XXCOPY and XXCLONE. Both free for individual
use.

They both run in a DOS window.

With XXCopy you can use the /clone parameter and iirc it copies
everything but the swapfile (pagefile) and hiberfile, XXCOPY /Clone
is sufficient to make a copy of a win98 partitiion. XXCOPY with other
parameters does loads of other things, everything xcopy does times 2 or
3.

Because 2000 and XP work differently from W98, Ken came up with XXCLONE
which will make a bootable copy of an XP partition (and maybe Vista, 7
and 8. I haven't been keeping up.) It's different afaik from all
the other clone software in that it's not a cylinder by cylinder clone
or a track by track clone, but a file by file clone. IIUC, this means
the destination drive doesn't have to look anything like the source
drive, except it has to a big enough. It also means you can exclude
particular files, because the program knows what file it's copying at
any given moment.

Both have webpages www.xxcopy.com and xxclone.com, and both have
mailing lists, the first on Yahoo and the second on google non-usenet
groups, in which the author participates, plus others who know the
programs well.

Plus you can determine the parameters you want for each task and then
put that line in a bat file, usually a one line bat file, so you don't
have to remember things.

 

[Paul]

Funny, that's never a problem for me with Robocopy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy

"Therefore Robocopy is not useful for backing
up live operating system volumes [C:]."

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2006.11.utilityspotlight.aspx

It's about a 1MB download.

The file "_54ECED6107F5477E80212C764531DDF6" is the actual
212992 byte robocopy command line program (you can find that
in there with 7-ZIP). The GUI that comes with the installer,
attempts to make it more friendly. I never installed the GUI,
and just use the command line.

robocopy E:\ F:\ /mir /copy:datso /dcopy:t /r:3 /w:2 /zb /np /tee /v /log:robocopy_e_to_f.log

That copies partition E: to partition F:. Anything which cannot
be copied (like a "trash can") gets skipped. The log file
contained a complete record of what was done. Since that command
is running in "Mirror" mode, it is very dangerous. Make sure before
beginning a run, of the drive letter names. I made a mistake
once, by assuming a drive letter hadn't changed, and selected
the wrong target partition. You could try something other than
Mirror mode if you want.

Total Copied Skipped Mismatch FAILED Extras
Dirs : 6947 6945 2 0 0 0
Files : 56636 56634 2 0 0 0
Bytes : 22.237 g 17.238 g 4.999 g 0 0 0
Times : 0:05:19 0:04:08 0:00:00 0:01:10

Speed : 74434107 Bytes/sec.
Speed : 4259.153 MegaBytes/min.

The reason that log has 4.999GB of files skipped, is the
pagefile and hiberfile were copied separately. And the copy
tool doesn't do any unnecessary work that was already done.
Since I copied the files just before running Robocopy, I
know the skipped files are things already completed. I move
a pagefile first, so it's near the beginning of the partition.

HTH,
Paul

So that's what Robocopy is for. I've seen it on oldapps.com. Never
knew what it was for. I'll have to try it....

Why do you copy your pagefile? When I backup Win2000 (drive D, while
booted to Win98 on C:, I just delete the pagefile before copying the D:
partition. When I boot up W2000, it always makes a new one anyhow. And
when I backup Win98, while booted to W2000, I always delete the swap
file from the Windows dir. I've deleted them forever. I think I ws
told to do that way back in Win95, or maybe Win3.x (DID Win3.x have one?
I cant remember).

I'm trying an experiment. I'm trying to install Windows 1.0 on a flash
drive, and see if I can get it to boot, one the one computer that I have
which has the ability to boot from a flash drive. I've never even seen
Win 1.0, but I got my hands on it, so I want to see what it was. Maybe
it wont even run on a Pentium 4, but I can try..... Otherwise I'll try
to install it on one of those 1 or 2 gig HDDs I have. The entire
installer fits on a 1.44 floppy, so installed it will probably be 3 or 4
megs at most. The file dates on it are all 1985. It's amazing to think
that in 28 years, Windows has gone from a 1.4meg installer to however
big Win8 is? (I know it wont fit on a CD anymore). At that rate, by
2020, Windows will probably require inserting 10 DVDs to install it....
and will need 1TB of drive space just for the OS. (unless they just plum
run out of ideas to add more bloat)....

You copy the pagefile, to control its *position*. I wanted
it near the beginning of the partition.

Sure, you could let Windows make one for you, but it'll end up
half way out in the partition.

Paul

 

[casey.o]

I haven't done it with XP but you can copy a C: drive in W/98 with
XCOPY
Do an XCOPY /? first and decide which switches you need but usually
/S/H/E/R/C

Will it copy right thru, and skip the swap file, which always kills a
standard "copy". That was always a pain in the ass, till I set up my
dual boot, which I found out to just use the other boot to copy the
opposite OS. In other words, boot to W98 to copy W2K, and vice versa.

XP is a lot sorse, because it has files in both the Windows folder, and
the documents and settings folder, plus the swap file (pagefile) in the
root.

 

[casey.o]

You copy the pagefile, to control its *position*. I wanted
it near the beginning of the partition.

Sure, you could let Windows make one for you, but it'll end up
half way out in the partition.

Paul

That makes sense..... But do they stay the same size all the time in
XP? I know the Win98 swap files change size all the time, so then thye
would get fragmented. I never paid attention to th size of them in XP.

 

[Paul in Houston TX]

Will it copy right thru, and skip the swap file, which always kills a
standard "copy". That was always a pain in the ass, till I set up my
dual boot, which I found out to just use the other boot to copy the
opposite OS. In other words, boot to W98 to copy W2K, and vice versa.

XP is a lot sorse, because it has files in both the Windows folder, and
the documents and settings folder, plus the swap file (pagefile) in the
root.

Type xcopy /? at at prompt and read the info.
There is an -exclude:file switch.

 

[Paul]

That makes sense..... But do they stay the same size all the time in
XP? I know the Win98 swap files change size all the time, so then thye
would get fragmented. I never paid attention to th size of them in XP.

Mine is set to a fixed size. It's no longer "Automatic".

Settings : Control Panel : System : Advanced : Performance : Advanced : Virtual Memory : (Custom)

Paul

 

[casey.o]

That is what the /C switch is for.
Continue after errors

You just see the message fly by.

OK, that sounds handy. The one thing using "COPY" that really pisses me
off is when it quits in the middle of copying a large set of files
because it encounters some file it can't copy. I never understood why
it cant just skip that fiel and continue.....

Besides swap files, I'm still sure which files it refuses to copy in XP.
Particularly in the "documents and settings" folder.

 

[Nil]

COPY became an obsolete command sometime around DOS 3.2 when XCOPY
was released.
It is a very powerful tool that really has no real match in
Windows. In fact there are plenty of things you can do with file
systems and text files with DOS tools that have no parallel in
Windows.

Maybe you mean "no parallel in the Windows GUI". All those commands you
mention are still part of Windows.

 

[casey.o]

Maybe you mean "no parallel in the Windows GUI". All those commands you
mention are still part of Windows.

Unlike Unix/Linux command line stuff, which I prefer to not even touch,
I dont mind using Dos. But when it comes to copying or moving files,
I'd much rather use a GUI, jsut because it's easier. But there dont
seem to be any xcopy for Windows. Just copy or move, that's it. I can
only imagine that there must be some sort of aftermarket tool to perform
this.

Once again, I have to gripe about MS neglecting useful tools like this,
while filling their software with bloated crap.....

 

[Nil]

But there dont seem to be any xcopy for Windows.

There certainly is! Type XCOPY at the command prompt and you're off at
the races.

 

[casey.o]

There certainly is! Type XCOPY at the command prompt and you're off at
the races.

All of you must have missed my point. Yes, I know xcopy is there at the
command prompt. But I'd rather use a GUI based program to do the file
moving / copying. From the GUI (explorer), there is just copy or move.

For example, lets say I'm sorting out videos. I want them to go into
the following folders. Dogs, cats, horses, computer-stuff, auto-repair,
rock-bands, or misc. I dont want ot have to keep going to the command
prompt to move them......

 

[Good Guy]

All of you must have missed my point. Yes, I know xcopy is there at
the command prompt. But I'd rather use a GUI based program to do the
file moving / copying. From the GUI (explorer), there is just copy
or move.

For example, lets say I'm sorting out videos. I want them to go
into the following folders. Dogs, cats, horses, computer-stuff,
auto-repair, rock-bands, or misc. I dont want ot have to keep going
to the command prompt to move them......

That is where drag and drop comes quite handy. Have you tried it?

 

[Nil]

That is where drag and drop comes quite handy. Have you tried it?

I would have assumed that went without saying. Apparently I was
mistaken.

No one tool is best for all situations. Sometimes the command line is
easiest and most efficient, sometimes the GUI. It's good to have
choices.

 

[Zaky Waky]

All of you must have missed my point. Yes, I know xcopy is there at the
command prompt. But I'd rather use a GUI based program to do the file
moving / copying. From the GUI (explorer), there is just copy or move.

People smart enough to use XCOPY don't need a GUI.

 

[Good Guy]

People smart enough to use XCOPY don't need a GUI.

OK smart enough guy tell us how much is "smart enough" enough to do what
you imply here?

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

+1!

That is where drag and drop comes quite handy. Have you tried it?

Er, yes, he has. And when you've - laboriously - selected lots of files,
and done a drag-and-drop, and one of them fails with an error message,
because drag-and-drop only implements COPY not XCOPY ... Grr!

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in


People smart enough to use XCOPY don't need a GUI.

Casey didn't say he _couldn't_ use XCOPY; he said he'd _rather_ use a
GUI. Your line above is extremely irritating/condescending/whatever.

In the part you snipped, for example, Casey suggested that he might be,
say, moving or copying all the movies that he knew were of horses, from
a large set of mixed files. Unless the file names all start with HORSE
or something, which can't always be controlled, it's much _easier_ to do
ctrl-click or similar in a GUI, than to type them all out laboriously in
a command box.