Get-ChildItem | Copy-Item

Question

Trying to decipher why the copy-item is not working as expected within my ps script. I am attempting to search my fileservers for any *.pst files on all attached/valid drives, then copy those .pst files that were found to a different share location. Script below does not give me the expected results. The Out-File shows no found .pst files. When I check the destination folder I find only one *.pst file was copied over. I have validated there are several in different directories, and subfolders on the fileserver. The $Computers.txt file does not list any .pst files found or copied Screenshot
Below is my novice ps script

$Computers = hostname
get-psdrive -PSProvider "FileSystem" `
| foreach {Write-Output $Computers $_.Root;get-childitem $_.Root -include *.PST -Recurse -erroraction silentlyContinue | Copy-Item -Destination "\\Server1\PSTsbackupfolder\" `
| Select-Object -Property $Computers,Directory,Name} | Format-Table -AutoSize `
| Out-File -FilePath "\\Server1\Results\$Computers.txt"

If I remove | Copy-Item -Destination "\\Server1\PSTsbackupfolder\" from my script, the out-file $Computers.txt shows me the expected results, but the goal of copying over those .pst files is still a needed expectation. The out-file results for $Computers.txt: Screenshot, Any advice is appreciated.

Answer 1

You need to add -Append to Out-File to get the whole list; every time you iterate through your list you create a new file.

If you remove Copy-Item from the pipe, you send the output of Get-ChildItem to the rest of the pipe. If you keep Copy-Item there, you send the output of Copy-Item, which is just the one file it just acted on.

If you're trying to copy all files found on ServerA to \\server1\PSTBackupFolder, you're going to have a much better time running Robocopy on ServerA with something like the following:

Get-PSDrive -PSProvider FileSystem | ForEach-Objecct {robocopy $_.root *.pst /z /v /r:5 /log:\\Server1\PSTsbackupfolder\RoboCopy.$($_.Name).log \\Server1\PSTsbackupfolder}

This will get all FileSystem PSDrives, then iterate through each of the drives and robocopy all files located under the root (The drive letter) that match *.pst to \\Server1\PSTBackupfolder. We copy them in resumeable mode (/z), verbosely (/v), retry the copy 5 times (/r:5), and log all transactions to \\server1\pstbackupfolder\robocopy.DRIVELETTER.Log

We use an inline substitution ($($_.Name)) to split the copy logs into separate files because it's far easier to deal with when you're trying to figure out why Bill's PST didn't copy from the L: drive if you've only got to go through 50 entries instead of 50,000

Answer 2

I am certain there are better, cleaner, more efficient ways of writing this code, I will take your advise/suggestions and attempt to improve my code, but at my current skill level - this is what I was able to piece together which gave me the end result I was looking for.

$FileServer = hostname
$DestPath = "c:\PSTs\$FileServer"
#Checks if the Destination Dir/Path exists, if not it creates the folder and names it whatever the hostname is
If ((Test-Path -path $DestPath -PathType Container) -eq $false) {New-Item $DestPath -ItemType Directory}
#Searches for .psts files on host, exports results to .csv file.
Get-psdrive -PSProvider "FileSystem" `
| ForEach-Object {(get-childitem $_.Root -recurse -file -Filter *.PST -erroraction silentlyContinue `
| Select-Object -Property Directory,Name)} | Export-Csv -path "$DestPath\$FileServer.csv" -NoTypeInformation -Force
#Sets variable for .CSV file from previous command
$PstPath = Get-Content -Path "$DestPath\$FileServer.csv"
#Modifying .CSV for preceding commands to work.
$PSTsCSV = "$DestPath\$FileServer.csv"
($PstPath).Replace('"Directory",','"Path"').replace('"Name"','').replace('","','\') | Out-File -FilePath $PSTsCSV -force
#Reads each line of .CSV file, copies .pst file from source to destination, if file name exsists...
#in destination, it will re-name file appending a consecutive number
$CSV = Import-Csv $DestPath\$FileServer.csv
Get-ChildItem -Path $CSV.Path | ForEach-Object {
    $num=1
    $newName = Join-Path -Path $DestPath -ChildPath $_.Name
    while(Test-Path -Path $newName)
    {
       $newName = Join-Path $DestPath ($_.BaseName + "_$num" + $_.Extension)
       $num+=1
    }
    $_ | Copy-Item -Destination $newName
}

I found an issue in my script, this is the line in question. ($PstPath).Replace('"Directory",','"Path"').replace('"Name"','').replace('","','\') | Out-File -FilePath $PSTsCSV -force

If searching for .psts on a server that yields no .pst files, the output to the .csv file will have no results. An error will surface stating You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression.

You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression.
At D:\Scripts\PowerShell\tempCodeRunnerFile.ps1:6 char:1
+ ($PstPath).Replace('"Directory",','"Path"').replace('"Name"','').repl ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [], RuntimeException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvokeMethodOnNull

to remedy [as best as I could figure out], in the event no .psts are found I re-wrote the code by adding -ErrorAction Stop so the script stops at this point, like this

Get-Content $PSTsCSV.Replace('"Directory",','"Path"').replace('"Name"','').replace('","','\') -ErrorAction Stop | Out-File -FilePath $PSTsCSV -force