REplacement for Windows File Copy

Greg K's picture

He has: 2,145 posts

Joined: Nov 2003

I'm about to reformat my laptop, and need to copy all the files from it over to my server. I'm not needing a exact copy, so any system files that are in use and can't copy are no big deal for me.

However, if you have ever tried to copy a ton of files, and you start it and walk away, you know what a pain in the rump it is to come back in a few hours to see a message on the screen telling you it couldn't copy a file, and as soon as you hit OK, it stops dead....

Well I did a search before, and found a utility called FileBoss, which will let you do a copy, and it will automatically continue on errors, very nice utility. http://www.theutilityfactory.com/ it is $50 for the program, but comes with a trial period.

Well as nice as it is, I don't have the constant need for all of it's extras to justify the $50 (if I did it would be well worth the money)

So I did a little more diggin' (er I guess should say googlin') and came across a program called Terra Copy, which for the basic home use is FREE (Gotta love that), which is also supposed to recover on errors. http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php

I'm using it now as we speak to copy about 30g worth of files over to my server. It has a pretty straightforward interface, and can be used to be your default explorer copy function. It does a better than windows Status bar, not only for the whole process, but for each file, and will give you a list of all the files it copies.

One nice thing I'm looking forward to in the morning, when all files are copied, it looks like in "full mode", the window stays open, and you can then click on TEST to have it go down and do a CRC check of all the files copied. Sweet.

Anyhow just wanted to share these utilities with you.

-Greg

PS. Ok, while typing this, my wireless connection dropped out (yeah, I should have plugged in for this....) The program reported the error that it couldn't write the destination, and then just sat there. The connection was restored, still sitting there. It appears either to have a long wait time before trying again, or a write error isn't automatically recovered... I need to go to bed soon, so I chose SKIP for now, as when it is all done, I can tell it to "CLEAN UP" successfully copied files, and then hit the COPY again to recopy the bad ones. IMO still way better than windows dieing out and having to figure where it left off! Tomorrow I may recreate this error and let it sit to see if it does recover.

greg's picture

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

Nice find!

"Free for home users" is a great thing and more companies are doing this now. When they make enough profit with commercial sales they can release it free for non-commercial users. Not greedy!
Shame MS don't feel the same way Laugh

It's those companies that I wouldn't mind paying money to, but that's one of those weird catch 22's. Because they very kindly give me it for free I would happily pay Sticking out tongue

pr0gr4mm3r's picture

He has: 1,502 posts

Joined: Sep 2006

I always just use Ubuntu...and I'm saying "switch to Linux". It doesn't have to be installed on your computer to use it. Just boot it into the Live CD, and copy the files on the hard drive to a remote computer. It's better on two counts. 1) You have the option to skip failed files like your copy software, and 2) since you are not in Windows, you don't have to worry about locked files, so the odds of a file failing to copy is slim.

decibel.places's picture

He has: 1,494 posts

Joined: Jun 2008

Ubuntu doesn't have the Aero theme...

Ubuntu

Sticking out tongue

I have Ubuntu as a dual boot and wish I had more time to set it up

pr0gr4mm3r's picture

He has: 1,502 posts

Joined: Sep 2006

Ubuntu doesn't have the Aero theme...

That's OK, I'm content with Compiz Fusion. Smiling

Greg K's picture

He has: 2,145 posts

Joined: Nov 2003

Yeah, well it would kinda of suck that whenever I need to copy a file, I have to close out everything I am doing, put in a cd, and reboot to copy some files, then reboot back to windows to finish working. and in the middle of this, I can't work in my applications....

-Greg

pr0gr4mm3r's picture

He has: 1,502 posts

Joined: Sep 2006

I'm about to reformat my laptop, and need to copy all the files from it over to my server....However, if you have ever tried to copy a ton of files, and you start it and walk away, you know what a pain in the rump it is to come back in a few hours to see a message on the screen telling you it couldn't copy a file...

Yeah, well it would kinda of suck that whenever I need to copy a file...

Yes, I wouldn't recommend rebooting your computer into an alternate OS to copy a few files, but your original question involved a full backup.

decibel.places's picture

He has: 1,494 posts

Joined: Jun 2008

I'm just curiuous...

In Ubuntu I don't think I saw the Vista filesystem, only Ubuntu files

So to install the driver for my Broadcom wifi I emailed the archive and downloaded the attachment in Ubuntu (yeh I could have downloaded it from the web in Ubuntu but I already had the library I needed)

Maybe I'm just too green at Ubuntu..

pr0gr4mm3r's picture

He has: 1,502 posts

Joined: Sep 2006

Ubuntu should automatically detect & mount your filesystems. I can see my WinXP & Vista partitions.

The only problem I've ran into with mounting NTFS drives is if they wern't properly unmounted by Windows, Linux is afraid to mount them for some reason.

greg's picture

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

decibel.places wrote:
In Ubuntu I don't think I saw the Vista filesystem, only Ubuntu files

What drive setup do you have? Two drives with an OS on each? One partition? If partitioned what partition order are they?

Generally, you can run into problems if Win isn't on the primary partition (or the very least its boot files (NTLDR etc)) or if it's on a slave drive.

Linux, on the other hand, isn't that fussy at all. In fact, I'm sure it would run from thin air if you tried Laugh

decibel.places's picture

He has: 1,494 posts

Joined: Jun 2008

found it

the Windows filesystem is in the Ubuntu "host" directory...

using v 8.04 "Hardy Heron" installed from CD as a "file" in Windows, not a partition.

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