Solved Copying directory with Robocopy skipped too many directory and files

[peter7277]

I was copying a directory with its sub directories and files, around 6GB, using robocopy and i was using this command:

Robocopy.exe SourceDir DestinationDir  /E /w:1 /r:1

I added the switches /w:1 /r:1 because robocopy would stop on some files and show a message for 'access denied' and waiting for 30 seconds and trying again. So i wanted to skip these type of files. But in the end it showed this:

              Total    Copied   Skipped  Mismatch    FAILED    Extras
   Dirs :     11208     10868       340         0         0         1
  Files :     73105     70551      2551         0         3         0
  Bytes :   5.792 g   5.202 g  603.35 m         0   414.5 k         0
  Times :   0:26:36   0:20:22                       0:00:03   0:06:11


  Speed :             4569716 Bytes/sec.
  Speed :             261.481 MegaBytes/min.

There are lot of files and directories skipped. How to proceed? What switches to use so i don't have that much files and directories skipped?

 

[samuria]

Use /V Produce verbose output, showing skipped files. so you can see whats been missed

 

[johnhoh]

access denied is usually a permissions problem, usually on the writing directory. I suggest you include

/COPYALL

which is the equivalent of /COPY:dATSOU, which copies the Data, Attributes, Timestamps, Owner, Permissions and Auditing info

 

[peter7277]

access denied is usually a permissions problem, usually on the writing directory. I suggest you include

/COPYALL

which is the equivalent of /COPY:dATSOU, which copies the Data, Attributes, Timestamps, Owner, Permissions and Auditing info

You mean i don't have to include /w:1 /r:1 switches, only /E and /COPYALL?

 

[peter7277]

I found something confusing. I checked the properties of the both, source and destination folder, and destination folder show this:

Size: 5.80GB
Size onn disk: 5.96GB
Contains: 73.120 files, 11.209 Folders

The source folder show this:

Size: 5.79GB
Size on disk: 5.95GB
Contains: 73.105 files, 11.207 Folders

If robocopy shows that 340 directories and 2551 files are skipped the destination folder should be with smaller size, and it is not. It's even slightly bigger. How to explain this?

 

[peter7277]

I think i found the issue with skipped files and folders. I stopped and started the robocopy command execution two or tree times, so i think the skipped files and folders are those that are already copied.

So, practically there are only 3 failed files and i found that they are in the Cygwin folder, but couldn't find which one. By the way, what is the right way to use the verbose command? I added the /V switch but it didn't show the skipped files.

But i still don't understand why the destination folder shows 15 files and 2 directories more. Is there command line tool for Windows 7 that can compare directories? I couldn't find one.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I prefer using FreeFileSync for copying a large number of files or even an entire disk (as long as it's data only). I found it far easier to use than Robocopy and was more reliable. Any files that failed to copy over were reported at the end of the job.

 

[johnhoh]

You mean i don't have to include /w:1 /r:1 switches, only /E and /COPYALL?

just add /copyall to the end, keeping your other switches

But i still don't understand why the destination folder shows 15 files and 2 directories more. Is there command line tool for Windows 7 that can compare directories? I couldn't find one.

after doing copyall above, do the same robocopy command again but add on the /xo swtich. This will incrementally back up the source drive copying ONLY files that have been recently updated OR do not yet exist on the backup drive. If no files get copied, your work is done

 

[peter7277]

The hard disk from which i am copying is failing and have bad sectors. Could this cause problems? If some files are corrupt how robocopy will deal with them?

 

[peter7277]

access denied is usually a permissions problem, usually on the writing directory. I suggest you include

/COPYALL

which is the equivalent of /COPY:dATSOU, which copies the Data, Attributes, Timestamps, Owner, Permissions and Auditing info

/COPYALL doesn't work. I still get 'Access denied' message.

 

[johnhoh]

to repair bad sectors first do this from an elevated command prompt:

chkdsk C: /f /r /x

then a couple more ideas for the access denied issue are:

one idea

xcopy /C/H/R/S/Y c:\ d:\
/C = Continues copying even if errors occur
/H = Copies hidden and system files also
/R = Overwrites read-only files
/S = Copies directories and subdirectories
/Y = Overwrites existing files without asking

second idea
Robocopy's Access Denied message can happen when a file has an NTFS stream that tags the file as having been downloaded from the Internet or copied from a share. To delete the stream tag use the Streams utility command

streams -s -d c:\

Streams - Windows Sysinternals | Microsoft Docs

all of the above assumes source drive is C: and target drive is D:

 

[peter7277]

Thanks for the help. I managed to migrate my data from the bad drive to a new drive and it seems all data is intact so far.

 

[johnhoh]

Thanks for the help. I managed to migrate my data from the bad drive to a new drive and it seems all data is intact so far.

what enabled it to work for you?

 

[peter7277]

I just used robocopy to copy all files and directories. Maybe the hard disk wasn't damaged that much.