I'm trying to free up some space on a hard drive. Moving directories to another HD, some directories come out with the same number of files and some don't (I'm talking about several thousand files/directory)
I tried transferring the same directory twice and get the same different value on the destination drive.
I think I've seen this, but can't remember what causes it. Have you tried pressing F5 to refresh the Windows Explorer screen (if that's what you're using)? I often have problems with directory listings on networked drives, and this usually fixes it.
Alternatively, there may be problems with file protections (e.g. hidden files). Can you find the missing files using windiff, or just viewing both folders in parallel Expolrer displays? Then see what happens if you try to copy the missing files manually.
You could also try doing the copy from an MSDOS prompt.
Put a linux live disc in it, boot it up, it solves so many problems. Live distros often take no notice of any file permissions, making backup much easier.
There is believe or not a better than that command, I discovered it by accident. Its called Robocopy, short for Robust Copy. It is not a very widely known command.
type Robocopy/? to get the help info
Its part of Windows 7 command prompt at least. I don't know about Win XP or earlier though.
Robocopy even works with network storage drives that use the UNC format, e.g. //Freenasred/PrimaryDrive instead of being forced to set up network drive to logical drive letter mappings beforehand
Robocopy is so good that it if falls over part way trough, such as when the network drive drops off the network etc. it can be restarted and it will robustly check what has been copied and not been copied.It will retry the files that did not copy over.
You also get a list of the files that did not copy over.
Its great for copying from network drive to another network drive. Disk copy, Xcopy and copy will not do this.
P.S and Robocopy is FAST over a network.... Last time I used it I was getting 250 megabits across the network from one NAS box to another NAS box. This was on a 1 gigabit network though. This equates to about 30MB/s
Obviously it will be faster if the two hard drives are within the same machine on SATA or firewire and probably USB2 interfaces....
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