I know this is simple but......

Hi All:
I am trying to use robocopy to simply backup My Documents from my PC to an external hard drive (Drive F). I would like to do the backup every other day so ideally, robocopy would copy changed files only.

I created a batch file as follows:
C:\Windows\system32\robocopy "C:\users\MYNAME\Documents" "f:\My Documents" /MIR /E
pause
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The problem is that this batch files deletes everything in f:\My Documents.
As the screen is whizzing by, I can see references to "*EXTRA file" (screen dump attached). Can anyone help me with this simple issue???

Many thanks!

I had this document in my Vista folder from some time ago, it may be of help to you.

Windows Robocopy File Backup

Use Robocopy, which is built into Vista.

Go to command prompt and type robocopy /?
This will show you the settings.

I use two main switches: /mir and /e

/MIR mirrors the destination to be the same as the source. So in your source location, if you move, delete, add anything, the destination will be mirrored. If you delete something in the source, it gets deleted in the destination. If you move a file from one folder to another in the source, it also gets moved in the destination. If you update a file and it is newer then the destination file will be overwritten with the newer one.

/E will copy any file that is newer or doesn't exist but doesn't remove files that have been moved or deleted in the source. So if you delete a file from the source, it will remain in the destination. If you move a file from one folder to another in the source, then the destination will contain two copies of the file, one in the old location and one in the new.

The /E switch is pretty much the same an incremental backup. Depending on what you are doing you might want to use the /MIR option. On my machine, I use /E for documents and pictures in case I accidentally delete something, since documents and pictures can be important. However, for my music directory, since WMP11 is constantly moving and renaming files as I organize my music, I don't want a bunch of extra files everywhere, so I use the /MIR switch just to mirror the backup to the source.

In my case, I have a batch file that runs every night and it looks like this:

robocopy "e:\Documents" "f:\Backup\Documents" /e
robocopy "e:\Pictures" "f:\Backup\Pictures" /e
robocopy "e:\Contacts" "f:\Backup\Contacts" /e

robocopy "e:\Favorites" "f:\Backup\Favorites" /mir
robocopy "e:\Mail" "f:\Backup\Mail" /mir
robocopy "e:\Music" "f:\Backup\Music" /mir
robocopy "e:\Videos" "d:\Backup\Videos" /mir

pparks1 said:

The /MIR functionality instructs robocopy to mirror the source and the destination. So, if you have anything in F:\My DOcuments that doesn't match what is in the C:\location......you are going to have them removed from the destination. Is that what is happening here?

PParks- thanks for your response. I copied all the docs from My Documents on my PC into the f:\My Documents folder. I then ran the batch file (as a test) which is what deleted everything on the external drive in f:\My Documents.

seavixen32 said:

I had this document in my Vista folder from some time ago, it may be of help to you.

Windows Robocopy File Backup

Use Robocopy, which is built into Vista.

Go to command prompt and type robocopy /?
This will show you the settings.

I use two main switches: /mir and /e

/MIR mirrors the destination to be the same as the source. So in your source location, if you move, delete, add anything, the destination will be mirrored. If you delete something in the source, it gets deleted in the destination. If you move a file from one folder to another in the source, it also gets moved in the destination. If you update a file and it is newer then the destination file will be overwritten with the newer one.

/E will copy any file that is newer or doesn't exist but doesn't remove files that have been moved or deleted in the source. So if you delete a file from the source, it will remain in the destination. If you move a file from one folder to another in the source, then the destination will contain two copies of the file, one in the old location and one in the new.

The /E switch is pretty much the same an incremental backup. Depending on what you are doing you might want to use the /MIR option. On my machine, I use /E for documents and pictures in case I accidentally delete something, since documents and pictures can be important. However, for my music directory, since WMP11 is constantly moving and renaming files as I organize my music, I don't want a bunch of extra files everywhere, so I use the /MIR switch just to mirror the backup to the source.

In my case, I have a batch file that runs every night and it looks like this:

robocopy "e:\Documents" "f:\Backup\Documents" /e
robocopy "e:\Pictures" "f:\Backup\Pictures" /e
robocopy "e:\Contacts" "f:\Backup\Contacts" /e

robocopy "e:\Favorites" "f:\Backup\Favorites" /mir
robocopy "e:\Mail" "f:\Backup\Mail" /mir
robocopy "e:\Music" "f:\Backup\Music" /mir
robocopy "e:\Videos" "d:\Backup\Videos" /mir

Thank you! I will give this a try.

Thanks everyone for your help. It was my error- the source was on a network and I didn't specify the correct source folder. Robocopy now works and it is great!

You're very welcome. Pleased to hear Robocopy did the trick for you and thanks for letting us know.