Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

A few nights ago I decided to copy a full 4TB external drive that is 99% full onto a 5TB drive to archive the content. The 4 had something like 3.64 TB of content (the remainder I guess was the operating system info). It was going to take something like 28 hours to download. With about 78,000 files left (out of around 198,600 files), there was a power outage of about two seconds. It killed the download. I tried to start it again but was informed there wasn't enough space on the 5TB drive to download the content of the 4TB! I then brought the files of the 4TB up and highlighted about 1/4th of them and pulled them over to the 5. I did this with each 1/4 of the drive. When it informed me there was already a file by that name on the 5 drive and asked me if it should duplicate the file or replace it, I selected replace and checked the box to do this for the next xx number of files. While this did add some additional files to the 5, it still is short of the 198,600 files I started with. Without checking file for file for that many files, the only other thing I can think to do is erase all content on the 5 and start over. Any other suggestions?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

You might want to get a battery backup first. When the flow of power is interrupted, electronics get confused.

I never copy huge amounts of data all at once. For one thing, the drives can get too hot. If A folder isn't too large, I'll copy one folder at a time. If it's a huge folder, I'll copy it piecemeal.

Toment Loc: FL, IL

Probably best to start over, keeping in mind Jerryc41’s advice. Maybe a terabyte at a time, or even better an actual backup program that remembers what it’s backed up and then only copies new files...

Wallen Loc: Middle Earth

Yep good advice from Jerrc41. If there is no file that you need in the external drive, i suggest a full format of the external drive before recording to it again.
Otherwise, copy those files on another drive before formatting and return after so you start with a clean slate.

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

Thanks for the good advice Hoggers! I think it best to start over and only do about 1/4 of the download at a time.

ClarkJohnson Loc: Fort Myers, FL and Cohasset, MA

Very timely, as I will be needing to do this in the near future. However, after copying, i might keep the 5TB drive as the active drive and archive the 4TB.

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

Good idea I think I’ll do the same.

SonyBug

Yes, and format the 5 as the end of disk marker could be corrupted.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

Reformat the drive and start over. You also might consider a larger drive as this one is 80% full as soon as you and done loading it. When I hit 4TB I want to 8TB and I'm done for a few more years.

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

Yes, but when it dies as they always do at some point, think of how much you loose! I'm questioning even the 5TB.

neillaubenthal

Google robocopy and get it. Run from the command line. On a Mac there are numerous apps that will do smart copies to get the rest of the files over. Might be some on the Windows side but I’ve been out of the sysadmin biz for 9 years and with only Macs I don’t follow Win stuff anymore. Robocopy will copy only the newer files. Alternatively...erase the destination and start over.

controversy Loc: Wuhan, China

Easy to do this with Windows -- you just have to set the Archive bit on all files on the source drive. Then you do a copy that resets the Archive bit after the file is successfully copied.

Here's how...

TURN ON THE ARCHIVE BIT ON ALL FILES ON A DRIVE (or just whatever directory, folder, etc. you want):

From a command prompt, run this (assumes C: is the source disk - change as appropriate for your source disk)

attrib +a c:*.*



TO COPY ALL FILES WITH THE ARCHIVE BIT SET TO ANOTHER DRIVE (assumes source drive is C: and D: is the destination). The /m option means that the Archive bit on a source drive file will be turned off AFTER it is successfully copied:

xcopy c: d: /m



Here's what's happening...

You're using MS-DOS commands. The ATTRIB command simply accesses every file on the drive and sets its Archive bit to ON. The Archive bit being ON informs any application that checks that file that it is "ready for archive." Using *.* instructs the ATTRIB command to turn ON the Archive bit on all files.

Next, the XCOPY command with the /m option instructs the OS to copy all the files from the source drive that have the Archive bit ON to the target/destination drive. It also instructs XCOPY to turn OFF the source file Archive bit AFTER the file has been successfully copied. Also, the Archive bit will OFF on the destination drive files, as well.

So, after running the attrib +a c:*.* , and then an xcopy c: d: /m it will start copying files from the source drive to the destination drive. Again, once a file is successfully copied, the Archive bit will be turned OFF.

If the XCOPY is interrupted for any reason, only the files that have been successfully copied will have had their Archive bit turned OFF on the source drive.

Once power is back or whatever caused the interruption is resolved, just run the xcopy c: d: /m again and it will resume copying starting with the first file that still has the Archive bit ON. If you have more interruptions, just keep re-running the XCOPY until all the files with the Archive bit still ON have been copied.

Back in the day, this was the easy way to copy the contents of a hard drive to floppy disk and, later, to CD/DVDs. The idea was that XCOPY would be filling the target floppy or CD/DVD until there was insufficient space and it would quit. At that point, you'd stick another blank media in and start the XCOPY again. It wasn't the most efficient use of space on the target media but was much faster than trying to figure out what files would fill up the target media and then try to remember what files you had copied.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

When it comes to storage safety you need to use 2 hard drive as a matched set. I do and learned the hard way when a drive fail 10+ years ago.

I have 2 hard drives with all my saved items on separate computers.

Kozan Loc: Trenton Tennessee

Go to BestBuy and get a Cyber Power conditioner (UPS) . You have about 30 minutes before the battery runs down if the power goes out. That's plenty of time to shut down your computer.

charlienow Loc: Hershey, PA

Bummer. Since you were copying instead of cut and paste it has all the files already Ed copied on the new drive. If you copied very many files it will be getting full. So when you try to copy the old drive to the new one it will not have enough space left to copy the whole drive

If your new drive has a USB port to allow you to hook up the old hard drive it will be much much faster. Probably only be a few hours.

I would format the new drive and start over. Hopefully your new drive has the USB port

Good copying

Chuck