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Copying files
Ivan - 21/9/09 at 07:49 PM

Hi - following a hard drive crash I now have to re-build my data from various sources on Win XP.

I am looking for a simple method of copying files from one drive to another but that can be set to only copy all files that don't already exist on the destination drive and replace those that are newer than the ones that are already on the destination drive.

Have already googled it but the search description options are so vast that I have got information overload.

Anybody know of good freeware to do this.

martyn_16v - 21/9/09 at 07:57 PM

xcopy /D will copy only files that are newer than those in the destination.

A safer bet might be a file synchronisation tool, most will show you a preview of what they want to do before they do it, and let you change any actions you don't want to happen. I use Unison now (on linux, but I think there's a windows version). Microsoft have a free file sync tool called SyncToy that i've used in the past quite successfully

britishtrident - 21/9/09 at 07:59 PM

Cobian back up (100% free) will do it all for you --- can keep generations of backup, standard ZIP compressed or uncompressed changed files only or complete directory mirroring. Works manual with a single click or pre-scheduled unattended.

Has been archiving and backing up for me for years and never failed once -saved my bacon many times.

If you are using a NAS drive with built in FTP server rather than USB it can even do it by FTP making it less likely to get trashed by a windows virus.

http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm

[Edited on 21/9/09 by britishtrident]

Ivan - 22/9/09 at 01:54 PM

Thanks for the feedback - haven't been able to reply as am on the second last leg of a 5000km trip in 2 weeks.

Ninehigh - 22/9/09 at 09:19 PM

I thought if you copied files and they already existed in the destination it warned you

Ivan - 23/9/09 at 08:06 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Ninehigh
I thought if you copied files and they already existed in the destination it warned you


You're right - but i want it to automaticaly replace old files with only newer versions as i am restoring files from many sources and the whole thing would become far too tedious and time consuming otherwise as you would have to actually check the date of each file it found that was duplicated - potentially thousands of them.

Ivan - 10/11/09 at 11:30 AM

Found the answer - a program/utility called TeraCopy allows you to instruct it to only overwrite older files. Very nice file copy utility.