XCOPY to DVD

[Bill Martin]

My system is XP-Home with SP2.

I'm trying to set up a simple batch file to backup selected directories to a
DVD. It contains lines of the form:

XCOPY c:\Misc f:\Misc\ /s /d

The thing is that if I set it up to copy to a second hard drive, it works as
desired and only backs up stuff that isn't already there. When I make it
copy to my DVD though it effectively ignores the "/d" parameter. The second
time I do the backup to DVD it sees that a file is already present of the
same name and asks me if I want to overwrite it. And if I look on the DVD
with Explorer it reports back the same date as the source file.

Is there something magic about writing to a DVD that I need to do to make
XCOPY recognize the "/d" parameter? Allowing it to overwrite all the
preexisting files every time I want to do an incremental backup brings the
whole process to a very slow grind.

Thanks...

Bill -- (Remove KILLSPAM from my address to use it)

 

[Ron Martell]

My system is XP-Home with SP2.

I'm trying to set up a simple batch file to backup selected directories to a
DVD. It contains lines of the form:

XCOPY c:\Misc f:\Misc\ /s /d

The thing is that if I set it up to copy to a second hard drive, it works as
desired and only backs up stuff that isn't already there. When I make it
copy to my DVD though it effectively ignores the "/d" parameter. The second
time I do the backup to DVD it sees that a file is already present of the
same name and asks me if I want to overwrite it. And if I look on the DVD
with Explorer it reports back the same date as the source file.

Is there something magic about writing to a DVD that I need to do to make
XCOPY recognize the "/d" parameter? Allowing it to overwrite all the
preexisting files every time I want to do an incremental backup brings the
whole process to a very slow grind.

Thanks...

I am not sure about the specific example of using XCOPY to copy to a
CD or DVD, but in general it can be risky to copy large numbers of
files with XCOPY because of potential changes to the short (8+3) file
names for files that use long file names.

See http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips#newdisk for a simple demonstration
that you can do that will illustrate how the 8+3 file names can be
changed by xcopy. And as the article says just check your registry
for references to "micros~" to see how often these short 8+3 file
names are actually used to locate files or folders.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Bill Martin]

I am not sure about the specific example of using XCOPY to copy to a

CD or DVD, but in general it can be risky to copy large numbers of
files with XCOPY because of potential changes to the short (8+3) file
names for files that use long file names.

See http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips#newdisk for a simple demonstration
that you can do that will illustrate how the 8+3 file names can be
changed by xcopy. And as the article says just check your registry
for references to "micros~" to see how often these short 8+3 file
names are actually used to locate files or folders.

That's slightly bizarre. I don't think it's an issue in my particular case
since I'm just backing up data files for my various applications -- nothing
that's referenced in the registry surely. Even so, it's somewhat unsettling
that XCOPY apparently has such a shortcoming.

Thanks for the info.

Bill -- (Remove KILLSPAM from my address to use it)

 

[Bill Martin]

The cmd doesnt look right,to transfer hd to hd in xp,youd

type: XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r D: being the slave drive.For cmds
in XCOPY try opening cmd prompt,in cmd type:XCOPY /?

Your parameter string is not what I'd personally choose for data backups. I
don't want it skipping over errors (/c) and I don't care about hidden files
(/h) or special attributes (/k/r) and such since I'm just trying to
incrementally backup up some user data files. Also your string does not
address the incremental backup issue which /d) is supposed to handle in the
first place.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Bill -- (Remove KILLSPAM from my address to use it)

 

[Bill Martin]

P.S. Given that my basic goal is just to do incremental backups on
subdirectories with maybe 3 or 4GB of data files total, is there some
approach you'd personally recommend rather than XCOPY?

I've seen some people mention Smart Synch, but I haven't played with it yet.
Maybe I'll also have to install XP's Backup and play with that, though I
understood it to be targeted more at doing full backups.

Bill -- (Remove KILLSPAM from my address to use it)

 

[Ron Martell]

P.S. Given that my basic goal is just to do incremental backups on
subdirectories with maybe 3 or 4GB of data files total, is there some
approach you'd personally recommend rather than XCOPY?

I've seen some people mention Smart Synch, but I haven't played with it yet.
Maybe I'll also have to install XP's Backup and play with that, though I
understood it to be targeted more at doing full backups.

Bill -- (Remove KILLSPAM from my address to use it)

Check out XXCOPY (free) from http://www.xxcopy.com

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Rob Schneider]

How about robocopy, free from Microsoft's Windows 2003 Server Resource
Kit, or rsynch http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/ which is very highy
regarded from highly regarded developers (also free).

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms