problems copying files to new PC with x2. IDEAS??? TRICKS???

[jero]

Hi, folks. I like x2, the scrap panes are great. the PDF manual is also great! I have been using 2xExplorer and then x2-Lite for a while, and am now on trial - I guess will go Pro very soon, as I have now a new PC and I wish to better organize all my folders and files.

But now to the point: I am trying to transfer all my data (a hughe chaotic folder system, filled mostly with Word and Excel files, pictures, copies of web pages, music files, etc.) from the old PC (Windows98) to the new one (XP).
My plan was basically as follows:

STEP 1)
Copying everything "as is" from my old C: drive to an external USB HDD using Windows Explorer.

STEP 2)
Moving the whole thing from the external HDD to "My Documents" on the new PC using Windows Explorer.

STEP 3)
Getting x2-Pro, and using it from now on:
- to build and mantain a functional folder system,
- to delete all the files I dont need any more, and
- to regularly back up the whole thing on the external HDD.

Well... first of all, you might ask -Why would I want to use Windows Explorer to copy my C: to a HDD - Why dont use x2 (or some back up utility)???
- Well, the answer is: I dont use a back up utility because I dont have any, and I didnt want to use x2 because I remember having seen those annoying Windows Error Messages every time I tried to move any large folder branches with 2xExplorer (and later also with x2-Lite).

But anyway, the fact is that I started having PROBLEMS just from the beginning of STEP 1:

- Windows Explorer would start to copy some folders and files of my old C: drive to the HDD... but it would always stop very soon, and showed error messages like "Cant copy file. File system error 1148", or other error messages which I dont understand because I have a japanese Windows 98 but can not read complicated things in japanese - reading japanese is difficult for me, even now I am living since 8 years in Japan.)

- Well, then I thought: Maybe it is just not possible to perform a back up of a large C: drive (mine has about 8GB) just by copying the C: directory to a HDD with Windows Explorer. I thought that maybe this is the reason why people buy commercial back up utilities...

So I decided to ask in the forum if x2 has more adequate capabilities to perform such a back up than Windows Explorer! At the beginning I mistakenly chose the 2x Forum, but I soon got an answer from a nice folk there, who told me that 2x is indeed capable of performing such a back up of C:. He suggested me to exclude the system files and the Windows directories from the copy process.

And so I downloaded x2-Pro Trial version and tried to copy my stuff from C: to the HDD, excluding the Windows folders and the system files in the root C: ... But Windows keeps on stopping the copy process very soon and showing error messages.

I do not know which files are causing Windows to stop the copy process, but I suspect it could be the copies of web pages which I have lots of in many folders. I made the following experiment: I copied smaller subfolders, one by one, to the HDD. When the copy process got stuck, I checked the contents of the actual folder... and I noticed that most of them contained copies of web pages.

Now my question is:

Please, Please, does somebody have some good ideas or tricks about HOW CAN I BACK UP all my hughe system of folders and files from C: to a HDD without interruptions or without error messages?

Thanks for reading so far, and have a nice day.

Jero

[nikos]

jero

i don't think there's much more to add than what fred already told you in the other forum

the way windows organize the filesystem you don't need to backup the whole HDD. All you need to copy accross is the folder structure below where your "documents" are held. You cannot carry across program files, these need to be re-installed for the new machine

for this task pro or lite version won't differ by much -- you'll still get this strange error message

all you have to do is make sure that you copy only useful data folders. A scrap window can help you in that. Here's a possibility:

1. browse your C:\, select all and press ctrl+S, sending everything in a new scrap window

2. switch to this window and prune out folders that are going to cause problems: windows is one for sure, and program files another one.

3. The only folder from within windows you'll need is profiles where win98 stores your personal files. To add this to the scrap go back to the browser window, get into c:\windows and drag-drop the profiles folder in the scrap

4. now select everything in the scrap and drag=drop to your external HDD. You shouldn't get any error messages for this!

i hope you get the idea

[narayan]

CTRL+S will send each top-level folder in the C:\ drive as a single unit to hard disk (via the scrap container).

On the other hand, if you want to clean up at lower levels, and then copy the directories; then use the trick "copying only the useful part of a directory" (described on p. 74 of the User Manual).

N.B. When you remove files from scrap pane, use "remove" function (not the "delete"); otherwise the items will be removed from disk!

Read the manual carefully before doing any operation!

BTW you should copy first (not move): That way, the originals would serve as a backup if something goers wrong.

[JRz]

To complicate matters: Some programs store their data in the hierarchy beneath the Windows folder

So by leaving out the windows folder entirely you will probably lose some data files...

It's hard to say what exactly, because that depends on what software you have installed/use.

Just to remind you to be careful

[jero]

Thank you very much Nikos, Narayan and JRz for your messages.

Nicos, I suspect that I already got the "idea"(1), but that the problem(2) that I am trying to describe lies elsewhere (and also might do the solution(3)).

1) The "Idea"

After having received the advice from Fred, I already sorted out those folders that "are going to cause problems" ("program files" folder, "windows" folder, and all folder and files on the C: root which had strange names like "sys", "ini", "log" or "temp".

After having sorted out the mentioned files and folders I put the remains of my data inside one folder. I then opened this folder in a scrap window with the function "browse flat", and I got more than 16000 items (I think an "item" here means a single file, Am I right?).

By the way, by selecting everything and dragging and dropping the whole thing in the scrap I would end up with 16000 files of my different study projects of the last 5 years in a flat structure. As Nayan points out, I WILL rather copy those files within their folder structure (the corresponding x2 functions mentioned by Nayan are indeed GREAT)... But that is not the point...

2) The problem

...The point is that (as Niko points out) "I shouldnt get any error messages" for copying those files to my HDD...

...AND I do keep getting error messages!

I first tried to drag and drop all the 16000 items (flat!) in the HDD (just for a test), and after a few seconds I already got the Windows Error message "cannot copy file" - with no details on WHICH file Windows can not copy, nor WHY it can not be copied.

Just that bare message: "Error. Cannot copy file".

So I dont know how to find out which file (or file type) is causing the problem, and I dont know how to find out in which folder it is.

3) The solution

Now I can think three ways to find a solution:

a)
an "inductive way" : Copying my 16000 files manually one by one, that would be a way to find the "black sheep"... but would that make sense? It would take ages to do that. I mean, I dont think this will be the right way to cope with the problem, but anyway, I made the following test: I started copying some folders manually. I could copy 5 folders (including maybe about 350 "items"), but the sixth folder was a "bad" one. I got the error message "cannot copy file". Well, I dont know WHICH ONE of the 1017 "items" inside this folder structure is causing windows to send me the error message, but what I do know is WHAT KIND OF DATA is inside: All the materials of one year of a philology study project: lots of Word files, Excel files, picture files, PDF files and lots of pages saved from the Internet (some of them saved as "web page" and some saved as "web archive").


b)
But if I am not going to keep on checking "file by file" anyway, I will need a different way to find a hypothesis which could lead to a solution, maybe something like...

...a "deductive" way:

For example, yesterday I tried to face the problem from a fully different point of view:
"What if my Windows98 is somehow corrupted, and maybe that is why I am not able to copy my own files?"
I then set up my new computer and the old one (this is the one with the problem) together as a network. I installed x2 in the new PC and, from this new computer I then accessed the drive C: of the old computer and tried to transfer the data (of course, WITHOUT program files, Windows folder, etc.) to the external HDD... but the problems were exactly the same as the ones I had already experienced before. The only difference is that now the error messages were in english (my new PC has an english version of Windows, while the old PC has a japanese version of Windows)

Well it would be so nice if somebody could tell me about experiences with this kind of problem (Windows not allowing you to copy your own data), and about possible solutions.
(Or am I the only one to have experienced this kind of problem?!)

c)
As a third way of sollution, I could imagine some way of "forcing" things:
What I mean is: Has x2 some function which can overrun this silly "can-not-copy-file" behavior of Windows?
...Or does somebody know some other application, which can be used to force the copying of folders and files in spite of Windows' weird objections? If somebody knows such an application, please let me know.

...And a last possibility:
Of course, I can not exclude the possibility that I might have in fact still "not got the idea". Maybe one of you already gave me the clue, but I just have not understood... If you think that this is the case, please have the patience of letting me know once more...

Thank you very much for reading this.

Regards

Jero

[JRz]

Jero, the error (1148) you get indicates some sort of reading error on the disk. So I suggest you try to run scandisk (it is your Win98 machine which is having trouble isn't it?) to try and fix any problems on the drive you are copying from.

Then try again to copy the contents. See what you get

[nikos]

x2 relies on windows copy which arguably sucks for large scale operations. This is something that will be improved in the future

in the meantime, i guess that jrz is right suspecting some sort of problem with your hard disk

although i could recommend a "divide and conquer" detection method (try copying all the files and if it fails copy exactly half of them to figure out which part contains the problematic file... ad infinitum ) the simplest solution would be to use the xcopy command.

just go to your c:\ and type in the addressbar:

$ xcopy *.* d:\

(assuming that d:\ is your target HDD)
i'm sure this will tell you about the exact file that causes the problem!

[narayan]

...And in any case locating the problematic file is easy with x2:

Open another scrap container, and flatten the source folders one by one. (Press SHFT+CTRL+ENTER to send the next flattened folder's contents to the same scrap pane).

Then use CTRL+F9 to compare what is copied and what is not. Usually the copying will stop at the first-encountered problem. So the first "not copied" file is the problematic one. Skip this file, and select the next few and copy them. Repeat till end.

This is laborious, but there is no way (at present, that is-) to skip all problematic files automatically and finish the copying.

[JRz]

narayan, I don't think this will work, because the 'items' in a scrap container are only references to files, so the file contents is not copied. Therefore, the copying problem which happens only when you physically read the entire file will not occur!

[nikos]

... so your only chance is to check the creation dates to find out which file was last in

[fgagnon]

or ... (especially if you have corrupted files),
you can step outside the box and use a disk imaging utility, which doesn't copy files at all, just data, sector by sector -- here are a couple of free ones I turned up in a Google search: drvimager or drvcloner),
or there is a hard-nosed copy utility that claims it won't quit on windows errors :
unstoppablecopier

And then use x2-Pro to organise what you can salvage of your old files.