XCOPY to DVD

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

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)

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

Bill Martin <KILLSPAMwylie@earthlink.net> wrote:

>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."

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

> 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)

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

Bill Martin <KILLSPAMwylie@earthlink.net> wrote:

>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."