Problems copying files

[DeanD]

Im trying to copy files from a laptops 'my documents' and keep getting an error part way through that a file is in use. is there anyway to copy files and ignore the errors as there is more than one

 

cheers

[Michael]

If it's on a local machine try logging on as a secondary user, navigate to C:\Documents and Settings and copy the files this way to a USB memory stick (for example).

 

If it's in a domain environment, try unsharing the drive and copying on the server directly. Either of these methods should eliminate files being in use.

[DeanD]

Hi thanks for the reply

 

i have been logged on as admin and its a different users files. tried to repermit the permission and even take ownership but still get various errors, file in use was one

 

for anyone else who has this problem i have found a program called 'y-copy' which is free and will skip errors and continue

[everton4europe]

If it is a local machine. Tray taking the disk out and conncting it via a caddy to anouther machine then on the command line try using xcopy.

[apeo]

Has the laptop been rebooted and where does the 'My Documents' point to? Local or shared location?

[m2d2]

Why not use the XCOPY commmand with the /C switch to continue past errors.

[apeo]

Why not use the XCOPY commmand with the /C switch to continue past errors.

 

I believe the program he uses does ignore errors....

[shrike]

The best utililty for this is Robocopy (Rboust File Copy). It's a free MS utility that offers many options for copying files & folders. There are switches which allow you skip open files, you can also retry the file 'x' times before skipping.

 

I use it all the time when I'm doing server migrations. There is a GUI version available, but I prefer to use it from the cmd line as it's easier to see what's going on. If you download the GUI version, just open a cmd prompt and type robocopy for the DOS version.

 

A word of caution, the /MIR switch allows you to make an exact duplicate of the source path in the destination. If the destination directory isn't empty when the copy starts, the existing files will be deleted.