Folder dates when copying a whole drive

[anon125]

the external drive was a bit iffy.
we bought a replacement
copied the whole drive to another drive
now all the folders are dates the date of the copying instead of their original dates.
if we redo the copying how do we tell it to keep the original dates of the folders.
thanks all

 

[anon125]

is anybody still using this forum?
thanks

 

[Ian]

Are you happy using the command line? If so, I think "RoboCopy" will do this (included in Windows):

robocopy SOURCE TARGET /mir /copyall

 

[anon125]

thanks Ian
should it have changed the folder dates?

 

[Ian]

Normally file creation dates are normally retained, IIRC - but perhaps if you are copying between different file system types (i.e. NTFS > FAT32) then it may be a little different. I'm not sure on this part, it's just speculation.

You can certainly keep those properties intact if you use the robocopy tool though .

 

[anon125]

thanks- just simple win7 to win7.
maybe i should do it again, folder by folder - all tetrabyte of it

 

[anon125]

Read this.
do not understand what to do with it!!!
what do i replace the faces with?
one is T and the other is AT
suggestions welcome!

"There is built in robocopy which is very fast and can do that with easy
ROBOCOPY c:\src d:\dest /MIR /COPY:DT /DCOPY:T Will copy all files and folders and preserve the date and time stamps.
ROBOCOPY c:\src d:\dest /MIR /COPY:DAT /DCOPY:T Will copy all files and folders and preserve the date & time stamps and file attributes."

Thanks

edit (Ian): Fixed that malformed code

 

[anon125]

wishing to avoid dos...I went to this site
https://techjourney.net/microsoft-robocopy-gui-free-download/

but when i clicked "HERE" link i got another file. looks suspicious
so i did not download it.
thanks

 

[TrainableMan]

The big smiley grin should actually be : D (colon "D") without a space

See Robocopy Syntax >>HERE<<

 

[anon125]

thanks

 

[anon125]

got the GUI thing working - i hope
thanks

 

[anon125]

tried the robocopy GUI
does not copy anything, so i assume i do not know how to use it!

how do i try the dos version to copy everything from the M drive to the P drive without changing dates?
thanks

 

[TrainableMan]

ROBOCOPY M:\ P:\ /MIR /COPY:DAT /DCOPY:T

 

[anon125]

2018/12/25 09:49:22 ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Accessing Destination Directory P:\$RECYCLE.BIN\

Access is denied.

Waiting 30 seconds... Retrying...

2018/12/25 09:49:52 ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Accessing Destination Directory P:\$RECYCLE.BIN\

Access is denied.

Waiting 30 seconds... Retrying...

2018/12/25 09:50:22 ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Accessing Destination Directory P:\$RECYCLE.BIN\

Access is denied.

Waiting 30 seconds... Retrying...

2018/12/25 09:50:52 ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Accessing Destination Directory P:\$RECYCLE.BIN\

Access is denied.

Waiting 30 seconds... Retrying...

thanks for trying. nothing was copied

 

[TrainableMan]

Apparently it causes problems to go from the root dir because there is a hidden system folder for the recycle bin. What you will probably have to do is take it a layer deeper & do it multiple times.
For example...
ROBOCOPY M:\music P:\music /MIR /COPY:DAT /DCOPY:T
ROBOCOPY M:\pictures P:\pictures /MIR /COPY:DAT /DCOPY:T
etc,
substituting "music" & "pictures" with what ever the first folders are under your M:\ Root Directory and doing that till you get each folder

 

[anon125]

Thanks for explaining that.
i have to ask myself is the correct date on the folders important enough for me to do that for a zillion files!

 

[anon125]

This is harder than it should be!
how do i select and copy text in does?
thanks

 

[TrainableMan]

You cannot have spaces without double quotes for example "M:\000 FAVORITE BU".

But, quite honestly, you are making this harder than it should be. The root directory should not really be used to store files, just folders; and even the number of folders in the root it is best to keep to a minimum.

My suggestion, on M: simply create a folder DATA. Then use Windows explorer to drag everything you have in M: root that you intend to migrate, down into the M:\DATA folder. Now you should be able to simply
robocopy M:\DATA P:\DATA /MIR /COPY:DAT /DCOPY:T

 

[anon125]

it has only folders
i was mistaken saying " a zillion files! "
but there are a huge number of folders containing files
000 FAVORITE BU is a folder
thanks

 

[TrainableMan]

Like I said, create a folder called DATA & drag all those folders into DATA, then you need only robocopy DATA & it will be done