Other External products

[svenfran]

I just purchased a Seagate Expansion 3TB USB 3.0 external drive.  When I try to drag/drop all files in order to copy from my internal drive (for example C:\), the process hangs up when it finds a "file in use" and the copy process will not continue after I click out of the dialogue.  I can easily understand that it can't copy files currently in use by Windows or some other process, but how can I get past that to copy the rest of the files?  It just ceases copying, and it's very confusing trying to sort out what's been successfully copied vs. what has not.

I'd rather not use the Seagate or Memeo backup software, because I prefer to just create a duplicate on the Expansion drive of all my original files.  Thanks for any tips.  Svenfran

[svenfran]

To update my own post, I found and installed a program at Cnet called TeraCopy that augments the Windows file copying "right click" context menu and provides some extra features.  TeraCopy is just a little confusing to use, but it DOES provide copying of large groups of files (including an entire HDD partition worth of folders and files if that's what you choose).  And it will essentially skip over those it sees as being in use by some other process.  Then when it's finished, it provides a listing of those files that it was unable to copy.

Since most of those are system files that I don't really need to "back up" anyway (I;ll just do a Win reinstall if it gets that bad), TeraCopy (freeware) is a pretty good solution for doing what I want to do; i.e., just do a dupe of my internal HDD onto the Seagate Expansion external HDD as a backup.

Other approaches are welcome if anyone wants to comment.  Svenfran

[svenfran]

Not so fast.  TeraCopy worked fine for copying mass files on  my internal HDD partitions to the Seagate Expansion, but did NOT work for copying multiple files from my network drive.  It hangs up on read errors that say something like can't read source file.  Oh well, still hunting for a way to mass copy these files to the Seagate..  Svenfran

[kenji57]

Cobian Backup allows windows volume shadow copy service so it will copy a snapshot of a file that is in use. Will back up to from or between network drives

Windows Robocopy (robust copy) command also allows mass copy over network, not sure about volume shadow copy

[svenfran]

Thanks, kenji57.  I installed Cobian Backup and it did at least get through the whole copy operation.  Unfortunately, it was unable to copy about half the files to my destination drive (the Seagate Expansion).  The Cobian software's error for those files said, "The remote storage service was unable to recall the file."

I tried, successfully, opening and copying some of those files individually.  So the network appears to be denying access only when mass copying.  It could be some kind of safeguard imposed by the corporate security software (TrendMicro and/or ScriptLogic).  Not sure.

Any clues are appreciated, because I need to copy this drive so that I can clean up the old, obsolete files while off-site (i.e., while not connected to my corporate network).  Thanks,  Svenfran

[kenji57]

Robocopy?

[svenfran]

Robocopy doesn't appear to be recognized in Windows XP.  Still trying to figure out a solution, but I'm wondering if our corporate security software is recognizing attempts to mass-copy files and then just stopping the process by making the files inaccessible.  Also, I think some of the files may be archived, because some look like shortcuts so the network drive I am trying to copy may just have some older files as shortcuts that point to another server where you can still get to them when you want to "unarchive" them.

[kenji57]

For XP you need to Download Windows Server Resource Kit tools

But you may be right the corporate security software is blocking the transfer

I thought that it could be security permissions except that you said that you could copy them individually.