XCOPY Stops after about 2Gs

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joe Kohn
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J

Joe Kohn

I successfully use XCOPY to backup drive c to d on my desktops with
either Me or 98se.

To back up my laptop to a dasktop drive d, I am using an ethernet
connection.

The laptop is running XP.

The XCOPY process on the laptop starts running fine, but stops by
itself after about 2Gs of data are transferred. This is repeatable.

Why does it stop? Why doesn't it copy the whole drive? What's the
limit?

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Joe K
 
I don't know the cause of this problem.

However, maybe using Microsoft "robocopy", freely available in the
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit will work better for such
quantities of data. It would only send changed files and can cleanup on
deletes if you set it that way. For such large quantities of data, it
might be more efficient and may be more robust.

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms
 
What means "it stops" - it hangs or reports any error?
If you are copying the whole system disk, there are files in XP that can
not be opened by XCOPY: registry, swap file and some others.

Also, if your XP disk is NTFS, xcopy can't backup it exactly to a win9x share:
NFTS attributes and streams will be lost... xcopying over network isn't a
greatest way to backup XP system one could imagine.

Regards
- PA
 
What means "it stops" - it hangs or reports any error? THE MSDOS
WINDOW SIMPLY CLOSES.
 
I guess ... I guess I'm just letting you know of an alternative which is
considered more robust for this sort of thing, is free, and may well be
the way to solve your problem without having to figure out what xcopy is
doing ... all depends on what your problem is: figuring out xcopy, or
getting the synch process restarted.

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms
 
because xcopy is a 16 bit prog, and 2gb is the limit, why not use something newer, anyway if your runnin
xp, its fat32 and like i said xcopy is fat16
 
Joe Kohn said:
What means "it stops" - it hangs or reports any error? THE MSDOS
WINDOW SIMPLY CLOSES.
Click to expand...

Ok then if you wish to investigate further - run xcopy from a cmd window, so it won't close
and you'll see it's messages or whatever.
The following command line switches can be useful: /Z, /C

---
 
Unlike 98/95/DOS 6 It is part of cmd.exe and not a separate program. So what
you are saying is that CMD.EXE is a 32 bit DOS shell. (If you run
command.com instead then you are in a 16 bit shell?)
 
I'm not entirely sure why this matters. 2GB is approximately the rollover
for a signed 32but number regardless of the bitness of the program or OS.
That said it's entirely possible that XCOPY fails after that much copying,
but I don't know. Have you tried just using explorer?
 
I would guess this would be able to be used for automated tasks. Also how
would it be possible to not copy older existing files over the top of newer
files.

Ken Wickes said:
I'm not entirely sure why this matters. 2GB is approximately the rollover
for a signed 32but number regardless of the bitness of the program or OS.
That said it's entirely possible that XCOPY fails after that much copying,
but I don't know. Have you tried just using explorer?

--

Ken Wickes [MSFT]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.


Jason said:
Unlike 98/95/DOS 6 It is part of cmd.exe and not a separate program. So what
you are saying is that CMD.EXE is a 32 bit DOS shell. (If you run
command.com instead then you are in a 16 bit shell?)

something newer, anyway if your running
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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