CMD line copy without overwriting

[dh42891]

I have about 1500 files taking up about 50 gigs of space. Unfortunately, it seems I may not have copied all the files from their original location. Is there a copy command I can run that will not overwrite? I know I can specify a flag that will tell windows to automatically overwrite, but I only want to copy the files that are not there. Obviously I don't want to click "no" everytime windows asks me if I want to replace an existing file. Thanks,

dylan

 

[JockMullin]

Hi, Dylan

Create a little text file on your hard drive containing nothing but the letter N followed by a carriage return, and call it nono.txt or something. Put it in a folder other than the ones involved in the copy.

Then code your copy command as:

copy c:\fromdir\*.* d:\destdir <nono.txt

That way the N's get supplied by nono.txt.

Jock

 

[thefourthwall]

dylan,

you may want to use robocopy. it comes with the resource kits for win nt/2k/xp/2k3 and is extremely useful for mirroring entire directory structures, while not overwriting data already present, when configured with its available switches.

-thefourthwall

 

[dh42891]

What does a 'carriage return' look like?

dylan

 

[Diancecht]

Or a traditional solution:

1.- Make destination files read only
2.- use xcopy sourcefiles destinationdirectory /c /y

Cheers,
Dian

 

[thefourthwall]

Jock,

that's a rather elegant solution, i think that'd work rather nicely.

-thefourthwall

 

[JockMullin]

Hi, Dylan

'Carriage return' means hit the enter key.

For example, use Notepad, type N, hit enter and save the file as 'nono.txt' to use my previous example.

Jock

"DOS Lives!"

 

[Freestone]

xxcopy with the /bb switch should do the job.

http://www.xxcopy.com/index.htm

 

[barny2006]

you can also write a vbs to loop through your source files, and then check to see ifexists in the destination folder, if it exists, not to write that file.

 

[dh42891]

thanks!