Synctoy disaster

[Guest]

Using Synctoy to backup one external drive to another external drive.

Primary drive failed last week. Going to the backup, I find that all
folders are on the backup, but 90% of the folders are empty.

Any advice?

 

[Galen]

In Nottageek had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Using Synctoy to backup one external drive to another external drive.

Primary drive failed last week. Going to the backup, I find that all
folders are on the backup, but 90% of the folders are empty.

Any advice?

Cry and move on. I use a third party back-up tool and while SyncToy has a
place it really isn't meant to be used as a full-scale backup utility such
as those provided by third party vendors. (ISVs...) ISVs tend to do a better
job at providing functionality and effectiveness. Your files are likely gone
and gone forever. In the future setting a good policy (even for home use)
and using something like (this is not a paid endorsement) TrueImage from
Acronis is a good idea. I keep a bare-metal restore for all my systems. Do
nightly incremental via network. Burn to DVDs weekly. And every three months
toss the old ones in the trash if I remember. Buying DVD-RW media was
actually more expensive than just tossing out the DVDs after 3 months as I
bought them all in a giant bulk order.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"At present I am, as you know, fairly busy, but I propose to devote my
declining years to the composition of a textbook which shall focus the
whole art of detection into one volume." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[Guest]

If Synctoy doesn't "sync" then it has no purpose whatsoever.

I wasn't looking for plugs for other programs, I wanted to hear from Synctoy
users/developers regarding exactly what happened here.

 

[DatabaseBen]

synctoy is a great tool

when it syncs it creates a log on both sides that
lists the files and folders it manuevered. without these logs then
the synctoy has no guidance "persay" as to what
has been moved, when, size, etc.... and more especially
the sync direction whether it was from a to b, or b to a, or
some a to b, etc...

further, it works best with ordinary files, docs, pics
and does not work for system files.

system files are best copied via disk images.

what has happened to me is that if there is one file that cannot be accessed
by the synctoy, synctoy will be disrupted and stop
syncing all of the files in the batch.

It looks like that your synctoy copied all the folders successfully,
but there was 1 file that was un-copiable afterwards.

If you re initiate a snyc you will see the file name that it gets stuck on.
Afterwards you would have to manually
move that particular file or files out of the folder. I think in my case
they were not needed and i deleted them anyways - they were rogue
files inside my doc folders.

if your main drive crashed, a repair can restore the
o.s., the booting, etc and will not disturbe your
other softwares, files, pics, etc....

possibly you can log in recovery console and
get your vital files moved onto a reliable media before
attempting a major restoration..