Alternatives to XCopy for copying lots of files?

Question

The situation: I have a pieceofcrapuous laptop. One of the things that make it pieceofcrapuous is that the battery is dead, and the power cable pulls out of the back with little effort.

I recently received a non-pieceofcrapuous laptop, and I am in the process of copying everything from old to new. I'm trying to xcopy c:*.* from the old machine to an external hard drive, but because the cord pulls out so frequently, the xcopy is interrupted fairly often.

What I need is a switch in XCopy that will copy eveything except for files that already exist in the destination folder -- the exact opposite of the behavior of the /U switch.

Does anyone know of a way to do this?

Edward Wilde · Answer 1 · 2008-09-12T12:13:47.107

15

I find RoboCopy is a good alternative to xcopy. It supports high latency connections much better and supports resuming a copy.

References

Wikipedia - robocopy

Downloads

Edit Robocopy was introduced as a standard feature of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

Robocopy is shipped as part of the Windows Server 2003 resource kit and can be download from the Microsoft download site.
A very simple GUI has also been release for RoboCopy on technet http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc160891.aspx

edited Sep 12 '08 at 12:13

answered Sep 12 '08 at 11:10

Edward Wilde

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It's also included in Vista default installation now. – macbirdie Sep 12 '08 at 12:01

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 12 '08 at 11:31

/D may be what you are looking for. I find it works quite fast for backing-up as existing files are not copied.

xcopy "O:\*.*" N:\Whatever /C /D /S /H 

/C Continues copying even if errors occur. 
/D:m-d-y Copies files changed on or after the specified date. 
    If no date is given, copies only those files whose source time 
    is newer than the destination time. 
/S Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones. 
/H Copies hidden and system files also.

More information: http://www.computerhope.com/xcopyhlp.htm

Excellent. This is 3 years old and it was the perfect answer to my question. — jangeador, Jun 22 '11 at 03:50

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 15 '10 at 15:56

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Beyond Compare 3 is the best utility I've seen for things like this. It makes everything really easy to assess, and really easy to manipulate.

answered Sep 15 '10 at 15:56

Christopher Horenstein

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score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 12 '08 at 11:19

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I'm a big fan of TeraCopy.

answered Sep 12 '08 at 11:19

David Webb

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score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 12 '08 at 12:18

It was not clear if you only wanted a command line tool, but Microsoft's free SyncToy program is great for maintaining a replication between a pair of volumes. It supports pushing changes in either or both directions. That is, it support several different types of replication modes.

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 17 '12 at 15:33

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robocopy c:\sourceDirectory\*.* d:\destinationDirectory\*.* /R:5 /W:3 /Z /XX /TEE

This will work for your alternative to xCopy... best method imho

Good luck!

answered Apr 17 '12 at 15:33

rud3y

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 12 '11 at 05:07

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XcopyGUI. A small, standalone GUI front-end for xcopy. Free. http://lorenstuff.weebly.com/

answered Mar 12 '11 at 05:07

Loren

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score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 12 '08 at 11:16

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I would suggest using rsync, several ports are available, but cwrsync seems to work nicely on Windows.

answered Sep 12 '08 at 11:16

Raynet

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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 12 '08 at 11:20

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How about unison?

answered Sep 12 '08 at 11:20

Swaroop C H

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Alternatives to XCopy for copying lots of files?

9 Answers9

References

Downloads