Win7 File Copy Problem

[pjp]

I have a couple of external hard disks connected, 2Tb & 500Gb. The 2Tb
disk has a folder called Music on it with over 4000 folders within it,
each folder is a cd/album. I just spent 6+ hours copying the folder to
the freshly formatted 500Gb drive. It's slightly over 400Gb total. I did
this by right clicking on the folder and drag/dropping it onto the
second drive in the "root" folder and selecting Copy.

At the end of it I received a query to copy 50+ files overwritting what
was already there? ??? Why would it not have already copied them and/or
what are they doing on the original disk in the first place if they have
duplicate names?

In any case, I answered Yes/Allow and then compared both folders on the
two drives. They numbers coming back are not the same. The folder number
is but the # of files is different. It appears somehow the original has
duplicate filenames. I have seen this happen the odd time before also.
The difference appears to be the same number of files.

WTF - seems every version of Windows has become less reliable in it's
most basic of operations. Can't even be sure anymore copying files is
done properly and sure didn't have things like long stalls etc. happen
in XP but sure showed themselves starting with Vista. Often enough,
you'd swear a hard disk has gone offline, e.g. 10-15+ second stalls
before window is filled with file/folder listings etc. That's even
sometimes simply double clicking on a drive icon in MY Computer to open
a drive at the root level.

Now how the hell am I supposed to figure out where the 50+ "extra" files
are on the original disk when there's something like 70,000+ total? I'm
open to suggestions rather than manually searching each and every
folder.

P.S. I have Search etc. all turned off.

 

[Ed Cryer]

I have a couple of external hard disks connected, 2Tb& 500Gb. The 2Tb
disk has a folder called Music on it with over 4000 folders within it,
each folder is a cd/album. I just spent 6+ hours copying the folder to
the freshly formatted 500Gb drive. It's slightly over 400Gb total. I did
this by right clicking on the folder and drag/dropping it onto the
second drive in the "root" folder and selecting Copy.

At the end of it I received a query to copy 50+ files overwritting what
was already there? ??? Why would it not have already copied them and/or
what are they doing on the original disk in the first place if they have
duplicate names?

In any case, I answered Yes/Allow and then compared both folders on the
two drives. They numbers coming back are not the same. The folder number
is but the # of files is different. It appears somehow the original has
duplicate filenames. I have seen this happen the odd time before also.
The difference appears to be the same number of files.

WTF - seems every version of Windows has become less reliable in it's
most basic of operations. Can't even be sure anymore copying files is
done properly and sure didn't have things like long stalls etc. happen
in XP but sure showed themselves starting with Vista. Often enough,
you'd swear a hard disk has gone offline, e.g. 10-15+ second stalls
before window is filled with file/folder listings etc. That's even
sometimes simply double clicking on a drive icon in MY Computer to open
a drive at the root level.

Now how the hell am I supposed to figure out where the 50+ "extra" files
are on the original disk when there's something like 70,000+ total? I'm
open to suggestions rather than manually searching each and every
folder.

P.S. I have Search etc. all turned off.

Two ideas occur to me. One is the shaky-hand syndrome whereby it's easy
to accidentally copy a folder when using some of the Windows navigation
boxes.
To check for those do a Search for "Copy".

The second is caused by Windows Media Player. It loves to scour the Net
for info on all albums that it's ripped, sometimes depositing several
versions of album pictures in the folder. To see those you have to go to
Tools/ Folder Options/ View, and untick "Hide Protected Operating System
Files". They'll show up with names beginning "AlbumArt...".
You can also enter "AlbumArt" into the Search box, and get an idea of
how many you have.

Come back if you want more. This is my speciality area.

Ed

 

[Don Phillipson]

. . . I just spent 6+ hours copying the folder to
the freshly formatted 500Gb drive. It's slightly over 400Gb total. I did
this by right clicking on the folder and drag/dropping it onto the
second drive in the "root" folder and selecting Copy. . . .
and then compared both folders on the
two drives. They numbers coming back are not the same. The folder number
is but the # of files is different. It appears somehow the original has
duplicate filenames. I have seen this happen the odd time before . . .

WTF - seems every version of Windows has become less reliable

We do not have to use MS tools (that nowadays conceal their
parameters.) Tools like XXCOPY make all the parameters
visible while automating long tasks, e.g. can display final results.

Now how the hell am I supposed to figure out where the 50+ "extra" files
are on the original disk when there's something like 70,000+ total?

How much does the 50/70,000 difference matter in practice, if you
cannot locate the difference?

 

[Dominique]

We do not have to use MS tools (that nowadays conceal their
parameters.) Tools like XXCOPY make all the parameters
visible while automating long tasks, e.g. can display final results.


How much does the 50/70,000 difference matter in practice, if you
cannot locate the difference?

This happens to me too with all types of files, doing backups (drag and
drop). Since files with the same filename are not supposed to reside in the
same folder, the copy function shouldn't find duplicates on an EMPTY drive,
should it?

 

[pjp]

This happens to me too with all types of files, doing backups (drag and
drop). Since files with the same filename are not supposed to reside in the
same folder, the copy function shouldn't find duplicates on an EMPTY drive,
should it?

Exactly. I copied from a drive to a freshly formatted external. I simply
dragged the "home" (e.g. D:\Music) folder to the new drive by holding
right mouse button and when dropped choosing "Copy". I can't think of
anyway it should then come up at the end asking if I wanted to overwrite
some specific files. Didn't help it only showed the filename and not the
full path. Guess I'm expected to manually have to examine each and every
folder comparing it with the copy to determine where and what the
problem is.

As it stands now what I'm doing is copying "sections" at a time, e.g.
all the folders that start with "A" then "B" etc. A not so nice all day
adventure given the number of folders (4000+) and files (70,000+)
involved.

 

[Paul]

Exactly. I copied from a drive to a freshly formatted external. I simply
dragged the "home" (e.g. D:\Music) folder to the new drive by holding
right mouse button and when dropped choosing "Copy". I can't think of
anyway it should then come up at the end asking if I wanted to overwrite
some specific files. Didn't help it only showed the filename and not the
full path. Guess I'm expected to manually have to examine each and every
folder comparing it with the copy to determine where and what the
problem is.

As it stands now what I'm doing is copying "sections" at a time, e.g.
all the folders that start with "A" then "B" etc. A not so nice all day
adventure given the number of folders (4000+) and files (70,000+)
involved.

Without having a really good theory, one possibility would be
something to do related to the implementation of "Library".
Since I don't understand "Libraries" in Windows 7, I'll stop there.

As for another way to copy the files, you could try Robocopy.
This "mirrors" partition L: to partition E: , but can be used
for folders as well. Must be used with care, because mirror mode
will "erase excess files" on the target when /mir is selected.
In seeking to mirror, it wants the two directories you state,
to end up identical. If the file is already copied, date looks the
same and so on, the copy attempt will be ignored. So if you wanted
to copy 77000 files, you copied two by hand first, then it would
copy over 76998 files and report the other two as ignored.

robocopy L:\ E:\ /mir /copy:datso /dcopy:t /r:3 /w:2 /zb /np /tee /v /logutput.log

More info on the history of robocopy, is in Wikipedia.

Paul

 

[Mark F]

Try running a tool that synchronizes stuff and use a mode that tells
you what the differences are.

I recommend
Super Flexible File Synchronizer (http://www.superflexible.com/)
and
Salty Brine's Folder Match (http://www.foldermatch.com/fminfo.htm).

Folder Match is better for ad-hoc things.

Super Flexible File Synchronizer runs faster and makes a few checks
that Folder Match doesn't.

 

[Stan Brown]

Exactly. I copied from a drive to a freshly formatted external. I simply
dragged the "home" (e.g. D:\Music) folder to the new drive by holding
right mouse button and when dropped choosing "Copy". I can't think of
anyway it should then come up at the end asking if I wanted to overwrite
some specific files.

It's not relevant to this issue, but the right-click was unnecessary.
"Copy" is the default action for dragging files to a different disk
or partition, so it would have happened with a normal left-click-and-
drag.

I wonder if, without realizing it, you jiggled the mouse slightly at
the wrong moment. A common problem is when selecting multiple files
with Ctrl-click, one accidentally shifts the mouse slightly after
clicking and creates copies of all the files.

For cleanup, or if you just don't trust Windows copy, I recommend the
free Karen's Replicator, which I've been using for several years:

http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

In the job settings, make sure to tell it to replicate deletions;
that will delete any files on the destination disk that aren't on the
source disk.

 

[pjp]

It's not relevant to this issue, but the right-click was unnecessary.
"Copy" is the default action for dragging files to a different disk
or partition, so it would have happened with a normal left-click-and-
drag.

I wonder if, without realizing it, you jiggled the mouse slightly at
the wrong moment. A common problem is when selecting multiple files
with Ctrl-click, one accidentally shifts the mouse slightly after
clicking and creates copies of all the files.

Not really possible circumstance. I always right click and drag because
it's then explicit if you want to copy or move the target. I find
Windows defaults to different actions depending upon circumstance so I
have to think

 

[pjp]

Not really possible circumstance. I always right click and drag because
it's then explicit if you want to copy or move the target. I find
Windows defaults to different actions depending upon circumstance so I
have to think

Ok, finally have what appears to be an exact copy.

I deleted the previous attempt on the destination drive, recreated a
folder named Music and opened a command prompt.

I then used "XCOPY S:\Music\*.* Q:\Music\*.* /E" and waited 8 hours for
it to finish!!!

In the end I had 56 files missing in the copy out of 70,000 files in
original. I downloaded and used FileSync from SourgeForge which showed
me the 56 files were jpg's created by WMP, e.g. AlbumArt...!!! I suspect
they were marked read-only/hidden or whatever else surely the *.* in the
xcopy command should have copied them also?

In any case because I didn't want those files even present in either
copy I opened up the original Music folder and typed *.jpg in the Search
box. That listed the 56 files which I could then delete.

The two folder now match filesize, # of files and # of folders according
to the Properties of each.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Not really possible circumstance. I always right click and drag because
it's then explicit if you want to copy or move the target. I find
Windows defaults to different actions depending upon circumstance so I
have to think

On a drag operation in Win 7, when Windows Explorer plans to copy, it
adds a + to the banner (which also, BTW, explicitly says "Move" or
"Copy").

That only helps if (1) you remember to look, and (2) you never slip (AKA
"Oops!").

<SNIP>

 

[Tony]

Is that you Chuck?

We do not have to use MS tools (that nowadays conceal their
parameters.) Tools like XXCOPY make all the parameters
visible while automating long tasks, e.g. can display final results.


How much does the 50/70,000 difference matter in practice, if you
cannot locate the difference?

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[John Ferrell]

Fortunately, W7 Search is pretty good!
Try searching the whole disk for filename *copy of*.*
You will probably find all of them that way.
Drag & Drop does not always perform as expected. I have not had
problems with 'Copy to' or 'move to' in the EDIT Menu function.

I share your lack of confidence...

I have a couple of external hard disks connected, 2Tb & 500Gb. The 2Tb
disk has a folder called Music on it with over 4000 folders within it,
each folder is a cd/album. I just spent 6+ hours copying the folder to
the freshly formatted 500Gb drive. It's slightly over 400Gb total. I did
this by right clicking on the folder and drag/dropping it onto the
second drive in the "root" folder and selecting Copy.

At the end of it I received a query to copy 50+ files overwritting what
was already there? ??? Why would it not have already copied them and/or
what are they doing on the original disk in the first place if they have
duplicate names?

In any case, I answered Yes/Allow and then compared both folders on the
two drives. They numbers coming back are not the same. The folder number
is but the # of files is different. It appears somehow the original has
duplicate filenames. I have seen this happen the odd time before also.
The difference appears to be the same number of files.

WTF - seems every version of Windows has become less reliable in it's
most basic of operations. Can't even be sure anymore copying files is
done properly and sure didn't have things like long stalls etc. happen
in XP but sure showed themselves starting with Vista. Often enough,
you'd swear a hard disk has gone offline, e.g. 10-15+ second stalls
before window is filled with file/folder listings etc. That's even
sometimes simply double clicking on a drive icon in MY Computer to open
a drive at the root level.

Now how the hell am I supposed to figure out where the 50+ "extra" files
are on the original disk when there's something like 70,000+ total? I'm
open to suggestions rather than manually searching each and every
folder.

P.S. I have Search etc. all turned off.

John Ferrell W8CCW

 

[Char Jackson]

Drag & Drop does not always perform as expected. I have not had
problems with 'Copy to' or 'move to' in the EDIT Menu function.

People who have trouble with drag and drop should probably just use
cut and paste. There's much less chance of mistakes that way.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

People who have trouble with drag and drop should probably just use
cut and paste. There's much less chance of mistakes that way.

I agree.

But then why don't I follow your advice?

There's no good answer[1].

[1] That means there's no answer that I can accept with good grace

 

[Dominique]

People who have trouble with drag and drop should probably just use
cut and paste. There's much less chance of mistakes that way.

There is definitively a bug in the drag and drop function, why should it
find, let's say, 33 duplicates after copying 25000 files on an empty drive?

There shouldn't be duplicates since there is nothing on the drive at the
beginning.

 

[Char Jackson]

There is definitively a bug in the drag and drop function,

I'd go as far as saying the behavior isn't as expected, but I don't
think it's a bug, and I don't think the unexpected behavior is limited
to drag and drop operations.

why should it
find, let's say, 33 duplicates after copying 25000 files on an empty drive?

There shouldn't be duplicates since there is nothing on the drive at the
beginning.

I can't comment since I don't have the relevant details.

 

[Dominique]

I'd go as far as saying the behavior isn't as expected, but I don't
think it's a bug, and I don't think the unexpected behavior is limited
to drag and drop operations.


I can't comment since I don't have the relevant details.

For the details : You grab a folder that contains hundreds of folders
that each one contains hundreds of folders which contains hundreds of
files and you drop the main folder on an empty drive and after a few
hours, Windows(7) tells you it found duplicate files and ask you what you
want to do.

If it's not a bug why change the behavior of a function that was
perfectly working for decades?

I guess the programmers wanted to add some more useless dialog boxes like
they seem to do at every new version.

For example when Windows began to support ZIP files in WinME there were 2
dialog boxes to extract a zipfile, when XP came out, there was 4!

It's the "Are you sure?... Are you really sure?... Are you really, really
sure?" syndrome!

The question remains why does it find duplicates unless the function
tries to recopy some files already done - which IS a bug.

 

[Char Jackson]

For the details : You grab a folder that contains hundreds of folders
that each one contains hundreds of folders which contains hundreds of
files and you drop the main folder on an empty drive and after a few
hours, Windows(7) tells you it found duplicate files and ask you what you
want to do.

The question remains why does it find duplicates unless the function
tries to recopy some files already done - which IS a bug.

The answer depends on the duplicate files. You still haven't provided
the relevant details, and it's ok if you don't want to, but it seems
likely to me that the duplicates were *generated* by Windows on the
target drive, rather than copied twice. That's almost certainly the
case if the duplicates were thumbs.db or desktop.ini, for example.

 

[John Ferrell]

That brings up the question "Is there a low budget way" to locate
duplicate files on a drive or a group of folders?

If not, is there a program available that someone can recommend?

The answer depends on the duplicate files. You still haven't provided
the relevant details, and it's ok if you don't want to, but it seems
likely to me that the duplicates were *generated* by Windows on the
target drive, rather than copied twice. That's almost certainly the
case if the duplicates were thumbs.db or desktop.ini, for example.

John Ferrell W8CCW