furious at how XP handles copy-pasting and deleting

[nassKouler]

Practical situation:

i have about 15GB or 25kFiles approximately in research papers and projects. yet when i copy them from a drive to another if a f***ing single file is faulty and thus can not be copied, THE WHOLE PROCESS IS STOPPED!!! i mean WHAT about the other 24999 files???? can they PLEASE be copied since there is nothing wrong with them???

I am furious and annoyed by the way windows, not just XP, handles copying that freezes a whole process if a part of it is faulty... i have been a windows user since 3.1 and still the versions change but the problems remain...

So i do ask of this community if it is in a strong position to carry advice to MS programmers to actually insist on giving attention on these things that actually categorise computers to what tools they really are, ie AUTOMATING tools...

i don't have the time to stay on top of the pc that takes more than 2h to copy these files just so as to delete faulty files and restart the copying again.

IT IS NOT PROFESSIONAL!

nass

[pmshah]

You are a perfect candidate for a 2 window file manager like Total Commander. In move mode it will halt where it detects an error in the source file. You can manually deselect it.

In copy mode on the first error it will prompt for your response offering you 9 different options. If you select "skip all" it will copy all files where there is no error on reading the source. After this copying process is completed you simply run "synchronise". It will show you the files in the source directory which have not been copied.

I hardly ever use the built in file explorer except in very typical situations where I need a second copy of the same file.

Try it you will love it.

[jaclaz]

Yep, that should be one of those "this is by design" feature.

However, take it easy , man, no need to become furious, there are alternative tools B) :

Ycopy:

http://www.ruahine.com/

http://www.ruahine.com/ycopy-file-copy-utility.html

"If you've ever copied a large group of files from one location to another, anticipated the 10 minutes remaining as a perfect time to get coffee, returning 15 minutes later to find the process stuck with 9 minutes to go because one of the files had issues, you need Ycopy. Instead of stalling the copy process, Ycopy continues transferring files in the background, providing an error log for any files with copy issues on completion. This isn't a replacement for drive imaging tools to backup an entire hard drive, but if you need to transfer 50, 100 or 100,000 files from one place to another on your computer, Ycopy will save you the hassle of figuring out where you left off, what went wrong and why your copy operation stopped making progress. Microsoft includes a similar feature in Windows Vista, offering more elegant file transfers following the 20th anniversary of Windows; with Ycopy, you won't need to replace your current OS just to get a better copy function." Jake Ludington's Media Blab

How does Ycopy help?

Ycopy will copy the files from one drive to another just like a regular copy. The difference being that when it encounters a file that it can't copy (for whatever reason) it doesn't just give up. Instead it makes a note of the file(s) that couldn't be copied and moves on to the next one. When the copy process completes you are left with a printable report that you can then give to the client detailing the files which were unable to be copied. Making the job not only easier and much more predictable for you (you set it going and leave it to get on with the job, no more wasted time poring over directories and files) but more professional from the customers perspective (not only did you copy all their precious data that you could but you've given them a detailed list of files that were unable to be saved due to problems with the original disks file system.)

jaclaz

Edited July 29, 2006 by jaclaz

[chilifrei64]

rest assured that atleast MS finally heard the cry about this and the "Copy" feature in Windows Vista has been greatly improved to fix these simple little tasks...

however, in the mean time.. from the command line there is a tool built into windows called xcopy.. play around with some of the switches.. see what works for you

[Andromeda43]

duh!

Did I miss something?

Why on earth do you have bad or corrupted files on your computer?

In 26years of working with computers and copying files from place to place, I've never experienced the problems you're complaining about.

Why, you may well ask? because I keep my hard drives clean, defragmented and in good condition.

Only a corrupted HD is going to give you the problems you're complaining of.

If you're looking for an OS designed to run on a corrupted HD, I suspect that you're barking up the wrong tree.

Clean up your mess and run Chkdsk /f on your HD followed by a defrag and you won't be experiencing those problems with corrupted files.

If your job is one that you will repeat, then write a simple little batch file and put it on your desktop or in a handy to get to place. Use XCopy to do the job. Once set up it will never change, but do the same job over and over again till you change it.

Here's how XCopy works: (thank you chilifrei64 for that excellent suggestion)

****************************************

XCOPY: Copies files and directory trees.

XCOPY source [destination] [/A | /M] [/D[:date]] [/P] [/s [/E]] [/W]

[/C] [/Q] [/F] [/L] [/H] [/R] [/T]

[/K] [/N]

source Specifies the file(s) to copy.

destination Specifies the location and/or name of new files.

/A Copies files with the archive attribute set, doesn't change the attribute.

/M Copies files with the archive attribute set, turns off the archive attribute.

/D:date 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.

/P Prompts you before creating each destination file.

/S Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.

/E Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones.

Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.

/W Prompts you to press a key before copying.

/C Continues copying even if errors occur.

/I If destination does not exist and copying more than one file,

assumes that destination must be a directory.

/Q Does not display file names while copying.

/F Displays full source and destination file names while copying.

/L Displays files that would be copied.

/H Copies hidden and system files also.

/R Overwrites read-only files.

/T Creates directory structure, but does not copy files. Does not

include empty directories or subdirectories. /T /E includes

empty directories and subdirectories.

/U Updates the files that already exist in destination.

/K Copies attributes. Normal Xcopy will reset read-only attributes.

/Y Overwrites existing files without prompting.

/-Y Prompts you before overwriting existing files.

/N Copy using the generated short names.

*****************************************

I'm always writing little batch files for my customers, often using XCopy, to do repeated tasks, like copying FD's to a folder for burning to a DVD/CD. Using XCopy and a batch file just takes all the drudgery out of repeating tasks.

But first, clean up your HD and run Chkdsk /f and defrag. You'll like the results.

Good Luck,

Andromeda43 B)

[LLXX]

Indeed, all files should copy fine unless your disk is failing or the FS is corrupted.

[IcemanND]

actually you could end up in the same situation if you have virusscan runnng and are copying infected files.

If you're a technician trying to fix someones computer you can run into this problem on a daily basis. I started using robocopy and set the retry on fail to a lower number than the default. Saved me a lot of headaches.

[Delprat]

Did I miss something?

Why on earth do you have bad or corrupted files on your computer?

A 'faulty' file is not necessary a corrupted one. Some apps locks them and you get a 'file in exclusive use by another process' error...

Hell, sometimes this 'another process' is the very same explorer.exe instance (in case you're copying a video file unreadable by the thumbnail thing -- this is not meaning the video file is corrupted).

The same matter comes with optical disc, when you have a CRC error on a file, the following ones are usally readable, but explorer.exe halts there (and since explorer.exe can't display the files in the order they where burnt, you need an external tool, at least xcopy).

I'm 100% with nassKouler on this... only because MS explorer.exe is the only(*) application i know that behave like this

++

(*): i'm a bloody liar, sorry. There is winfile.exe too