OT: XP Blue Screening
Turbo Mini Forums

try with a /c so it continues on errors and if you put '> c:copylog.txt' on the end it will put all the output to the text file so you can see what farked up afterwards.

That sounds a hell of a lot easier, thanks pal

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

One last question, should I use > or >>. The way I (think I) understand it its, > writes a .txt file for each error and >> creates a .txt file and updates it for each error. Is that correct?

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

not quite. > or >> outputs whatever would have been sent to the console into what ever file you put after it, not necesarily .txt.

> overwrites any existing file, >> appends to it.

Glad my MCSE has been of use

Thanks again Andy. Your MCSE has certainly been of use. It's earned you pints next time I'm over for a show :)

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

Progress, of sorts. xcopy took 100GB of stuff onto the external HDD. I haven't read the log yet (it's 1.5MB of text) However, it seems to have only copied the "Gary O'Sullivan" stuff from the C drive. It seems to have left all the "All Users" and "Administrator" files behind. Is this a permission issue again.

"Gary O'Sullivan" is the only user profile so shouldn't I be administrator as default?

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

Are you an administrator on your laptop?

I would have assumed so since there is only my user account on it. I did try to look at the account settings but it had a bit of a fit and wouldn't open

The laptop I'm using now is set up the same (only one account) and I am administrator. The only difference between the two is the broken one is not password protected.

I have always been able to adjust settings, add programmes etc. si I would have thought I was administrator

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

I wouldn't worry about the administrator and all users profiles, that will get sorted when you reinstall it

Andy, will I have to format the drive before I reinstall? All of my music (about 30GB) is held in the "All Users" files and I'm worried I would lose it if I can't copy it across now

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

Always best to format.

Can you browse the folder in explorer?

Yeah, I can browse the folders for the other profiles

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

copy them in explorer to be safe.

My personal prefeence is to partition the hard disk into multiple drives and keep all your important stuff on a seprate partition.

I will partition the drive when I'm reinstalling. Will 20GB be enough for XP and software? I'm running very low on free space

XP won't allow me to copy anything in explorer. It seems to forget the info that I copy by the time I try to paste

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

do the folder with the music in by itself using xcopy.

The size of your windows partition depends on how much stuff you install. I have 20GB for my vista, but it's continually full. However for xp 20GB should be fine.

Thanks again Andy. I'll go with 20GB. Half the software I have hasn't been used in years anyway so I'll leave it off

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

It Seems like I may be making progress now. I had to change the directory in the command window. It was set to "C:documents and SettingsGary O'Sullivan". I changed it to "C:documents and Settings" so should copy the "Administrator" and "All Users" profiles

Edited by GaryOS on 16th Mar, 2010.

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

Tits!!!!!!!

Just as I was making progress, I hit a brick wall. ~9GB copied and I got an "Insufficient Memory" prompt in the command window. I have a further 140GB free on my external HDD so it can't be that. After a quick search, it turns out that MIcrosoft only allocates 254 characters for the file name path. As I have a string of folders containing folders, I have exceeded it and it stops working.

My only alternatives are:
1. To try and get below 254 characters, which would fuck up my whole music library which I am very fussy about, and would take weeks to put right again
2. Get Robocopy or xxcopy. XP won't let me run a .exe since it is dying. Any way of running one through the command window?

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

robocopy is a command shell exe. you may have to move into the directory structure and copy the folders from there rather than the root of c: or where ever you are

Starting to lose patience and/or hope now. I can't move the robocopy.exe to the c drive so that I can run it through MS DOS.

XP won't let me cut, paste, move etc. so I tried the "move" command. No joy. I am getting an "Access Denied" message. Is there any way to change the directory in MS DOS to an external drive?

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

yes

Jut type x: for x drive, d: for d drive etc etc

or use xcvopy to copy robocopy to your c drive

can you just check this command for me and help out on the bits I can't figure out?

So I set the directory to the root directory (C:) which will mean all user profiles will be copied, the use a command something like this

robocopy c: f:Backup /e /copy:A /copyall

Do I need /copyall?I can't find any equivalent to /h and /c in robocopy. Do you know them?

Also, how do I log a .txt file of the process?

Sorry for being such an annoying dick. Who thought a bit of copying would take 3 pages?

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

I would go for:

robocopy c: f:backup *.* /e /r:1 /w:1 /log:c:robcopylog.txt

don't worry about copying attributes accross.

/r is the number of retries for locked files etc - default is 1,000,000
/w is the number of seconds to wait between retries - default is 30 seconds.

if you don't set them then you will get to the first inaccesible file and then have a very very long wait.

Hope its going better for you mate ?

http://www.jolyonway.com

Thanks Andy, I really appreciate the help.

Badgerbaiter, it's both better and worse! I have been trying lots of different options and I keep getting backtracked by little problems. Thankfully I'm getting help along the way and finding ways around the problems. And I'm learning a fair bit!

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse