System Backup Utility -- Can it Maintain Pathname/Filename Visibil

[Guest]

I want to make copies of files from one hard drive to another (in my case the
"other" drive is external). Using the XP system backup utility, I don't see a
way to retain the original file system structure -- that is,
pathname/filename -- without doing separate backup executions for each
individual file. For example, if the source drive contains something like the
following...

c:\Tax Returns\His\2005
c:\Tax Returns\His\2006
c:\Tax Returns\Hers\2005
c:\Tax Returns\Hers\2006

is there a way to configure the backup utility to copy these files to, say,
g:\backups and end up with the following on the g-drive?

g:\backups\Tax Returns\His\2005
g:\backupsTax Returns\His\2006
g:\backups\Tax Returns\Hers\2005
g:\backups\Tax Returns\Hers\2006

If the answer is NO, does anyone know of a third-party program that can do
this?

TIA,

Phil

 

[Leonard Grey]

Perhaps I'm missing something here. If you drag and drop

C:\Tax Returns\His\2005

from the C: drive to

<drive letter of external drive>\backups

you end up with

<drive letter of external drive>\backups\Tax Returns\His\2005.

with the identical file structure.

If you think you might forget that \Tax Returns\His\2005 came from the
c: drive, rename it to \C_Tax Returns\His\2005

 

[Guest]

Leonard,

Thanks for your reply.

If anyone's missing anything it's probably me. The main reason for NOT using
drag and drop is that I'd have hand-hold the operation and I have a lot of
folders to copy -- most of entire hard drive. So I had rejected the idea of
drag and drop. Do you know if there is a way to select multiple folders at a
time in the explorer, so that I could drag and drop a whole bundle of folders
at once, which would minimize the times I'd have to keep a watch over the
operation? I considered copying the entire hard drive, even though I don't
need all of the folders, but it seemed like the execution time for that might
be excessive.

Anyway, I appeciate your reply. It has made me re-think some of my initial
assumptions. If you have any other thoughts please let me know.

Phil

 

[Leonard Grey]

Well, you could write a batch file that will do all the copying for you
with one click or automatically through Task Scheduler.

If you really need to have the full path of a file easily accessible,
you could use a compression program like WinZip, which has an option to
store full path information in an archive.

Or you can use just about any backup program, and if you need to see the
original path name of a backed up file or folder you can open the backup
file in the program or restore the backup to a new folder - in either
case you can view the complete original hierarchy.

 

[frodo]

you could use SynchToy, tho it is intended for periodic sync'ing, and it
sounds like you just want to do a 1-time copy. But ST is easy to use and
understand, it's my personal favorite for simply ensuring I have a good
copy of my personal folders on an external usb drive.