Problem while backing up My Documents folder to external HD

Maidhci

While copying My Documents folder to a external HD, the process stops for no apparent reason. When I check, some of the folders will be copied but it will have stopped at a point and will not proceed further. When I attempt to close down, the following message is displayed...

Copying......

"Windows is currently working with a file. Either wait for Windows to finish, or close it before you quit windows."

The PC will only shut down by using the power button. Task manager does not show any processes etc. etc. Does anyone know what causes this issue - it is the first time this has happened. Any advice much appreciated.

Ten Pin

Not a direct answer but you could try using Fastcopy, it works reasonably well at copying/syncing files between drives without freezing.

ZENER

Is the new drive formatted as FAT or NTFS ? Are any of the files you're copying more than 4GB in size ?

Ken

Xterminator

Hi Op

you might have file preview on, in windows explorer, which 'opens' the file to display a preview.
change view to list view etc and try again.

Maidhci

ZENER wrote: »

Is the new drive formatted as FAT or NTFS ? Are any of the files you're copying more than 4GB in size ?

Ken

Hi Ken, The HD is NTFS formatted - it is not new by any means, I have been using it for some years to back up My Documents from my PC on a quarterly basis and have not encountered this issue before. The HD is 300GB with 135GB used to date. The last successful backup was completed in early October.

Only one of the folders (My Pictures) is 4.35GB in size, the remaining folders are all less than 1GB. Total folders being copied total 33 folders, total size, including My Pictures is 10GB. I have tried copying the folders individually, in some cases with success but not consistent by any means. Some of the folders, which did not copy were successfully copied to a USB key and subsequently moved to HD. On occasions, there was a reference to file attributes which prevented copying, some related to Dropbox, where the files were downloaded to Dropbox and subsequently copied to the various folders. Again, no consistency here, as alot of these are old files, which were already copied during previous backups. Hope this info will throw some light on the issue.

Maidhci

Ten Pin wrote: »

Not a direct answer but you could try using Fastcopy, it works reasonably well at copying/syncing files between drives without freezing.

I was not aware of this, might try if nothing else works.....see my response to ZENER to additional information.

Maidhci

Xterminator wrote: »

Hi Op

you might have file preview on, in windows explorer, which 'opens' the file to display a preview.
change view to list view etc and try again.

Hi Xterminator...file preview is not on, it is set to tiles view, will try what you suggest but doubtful of success as this has always worked before with current set up. Thanks again.

scamalert

just a wild guess but is there any applications/files that might be used by the system at the time of copy ? say live cctv footage being recorded, or some application might be using the files or tied to app that might be running in background.

if you have space on pc try to create backup folder and place all files there and see if it goes smooth.

also if drive hasn't been de-fragmented long time also worth a shot to do it.

Ten Pin

Could it be something to do with daylight savings at the end of October? The system time would have changed but the external drive file times would still be on summer time?

Maidhci

scamalert wrote: »

just a wild guess but is there any applications/files that might be used by the system at the time of copy ? say live cctv footage being recorded, or some application might be using the files or tied to app that might be running in background.

if you have space on pc try to create backup folder and place all files there and see if it goes smooth.

also if drive hasn't been de-fragmented long time also worth a shot to do it.

Hi scamalert - No other applications were running at time of copy. Will try to create backup folder, (there is loads of space on C drive) later on this evening and see how it goes. The drive has not been de-fragmented in a while so will also do that this evening. Will let you know how I get on. Thanks again.

Update

Defragmented C drive, created new folder and attempted to copy documents to new folder. It got stuck on copying from first folder, a PDF document which has been copied on several occasions before.

Maidhci

Ten Pin wrote: »

Could it be something to do with daylight savings at the end of October? The system time would have changed but the external drive file times would still be on summer time?

I'm afraid, I do not understand what you mean - a new folder is created on the external HD each time the Documents folder is copied?

Ten Pin

I'm afraid, I do not understand what you mean - a new folder is created on the external HD each time the Documents folder is copied?

OK, couldn't be that so, it might only be an issue if you were syncing.

ZENER

Sounds like the external drive might be on its last legs. Listen closely to it while copying a large file to it, if it’s clicking a lot then it might be time to replace it.

I’ve not seen a 300GB drive in a long time, must be a few years now ? You say that the files copy fine to a thumb drive, gives some clue.

Might be time to get any important data off the drive, then try formatting it and see what happens.

Ken

Lu Tze

Sometimes windows has problems with long filenames or paths. If you are copying the whole folder, under which my documents, my pictures etc are listed, then you might be copying the hidden folders as well such as appdata, which can have very long filepaths and names. Try just copying my pictures folder to test

ZENER

Lu Tze wrote: »

Sometimes windows has problems with long filenames or paths. If you are copying the whole folder, under which my documents, my pictures etc are listed, then you might be copying the hidden folders as well such as appdata, which can have very long filepaths and names. Try just copying my pictures folder to test

Very true but . . . Windows creates these folders itself. If you think it might help you can ensure filename/paths aren't an issue by doing this.

Ken

Maidhci

ZENER wrote: »

Sounds like the external drive might be on its last legs. Listen closely to it while copying a large file to it, if it’s clicking a lot then it might be time to replace it.

I’ve not seen a 300GB drive in a long time, must be a few years now ? You say that the files copy fine to a thumb drive, gives some clue.

Might be time to get any important data off the drive, then try formatting it and see what happens.

Ken

Hi Ken, If it were an external drive issue, the problem would not arise where I created a folder on C drive and tried copying My Documents folder to it - see earlier post. I only copied a few folders to the USB stick and moved these to the HD in a effort to rule out a HD issue, similarly with the creation of the folder on C drive and tried copying the files to it. It appears to me that the issue rests with the PC not the external drives. As stated earlier, the files now creating an issue were successfully copied on many previous occasions.

Maidhci

Lu Tze wrote: »

Sometimes windows has problems with long filenames or paths. If you are copying the whole folder, under which my documents, my pictures etc are listed, then you might be copying the hidden folders as well such as appdata, which can have very long filepaths and names. Try just copying my pictures folder to test

I have already tried this without success. As stated earlier, there is no consistency in the files causing the issue, some are PDF, some are jpeg etc. etc. all of which have previously been copied to the same HD. I also tried copying the folder in batches of 4, same result. I think I had tried all possible avenues before posting here.

Maidhci

ZENER wrote: »

Very true but . . . Windows creates these folders itself. If you think it might help you can ensure filename/paths aren't an issue by doing this.

Ken

I am not sure if it is relevant here, but the PC from which I am copying is running Windows XP.

smuggler.ie

Might worth trying xcopy from CDM

xcopy C:\Users\Maidhci\Documents R:\Backup2018Jan\ /s

Change directory's/username accordingly. If destination directory(R:\Backup2018Jan\) doesn't exist this command will create it for you.
Notice spaces before C:\ , R:\ and /s . Full xcopy description here (still works in latest Windows).

smuggler.ie

Maidhci wrote: »

I am not sure if it is relevant here, but the PC from which I am copying is running Windows XP.

For XP definitively change directories



xcopy C:\Documents and Settings\Maidhci\My Documents R:\Backup2018Jan\ /s

Esel

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Might worth trying xcopy from CDM

xcopy C:\Users\Maidhci\Documents R:\Backup2018Jan\ /s

Change directory's/username accordingly. If destination directory(R:\Backup2018Jan\) doesn't exist this command will create it for you.
Notice spaces before C:\ , R:\ and /s . Full xcopy description here (still works in latest Windows).

Use /e option as well (copies empty directories also, afair).

FanadMan

Have you tried a different USB cable and/or copying from another computer.....to rule out the drive or your computer?

Maidhci

smuggler.ie wrote: »

For XP definitively change directories



xcopy C:\Documents and Settings\Maidhci\My Documents R:\Backup2018Jan\ /s

Thanks for this info smuggler.ie. However, I am not all that well versed in technology - could you please let me know where R comes from? Am I right in assuming that I substitute it with D, being my External HD and type the above command at the C prompt?? Thanks again.

smuggler.ie

Yep, R:\ would be you external USB drive, and Backup2018Jan will be folder created by the command for you on that drive.
you can name it any way you like - just keep format of the command:
xcopy C:\Documents and Settings\Maidhci\My Documents USBdriveletterfoldername\ /s


So get CMD open, type/paste command, hit enter.
Depending on size of folder/sub folders might take some time, but CMD will tell you many files copied after completion(hopefully no errors:D)
You can ad /e switch, as it was suggested, if you like - behind /s /e

Maidhci

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Yep, R:\ would be you external USB drive, and Backup2018Jan will be folder created by the command for you on that drive.
you can name it any way you like - just keep format of the command:
xcopy C:\Documents and Settings\Maidhci\My Documents USBdriveletterfoldername\ /s


So get CMD open, type/paste command, hit enter.
Depending on size of folder/sub folders might take some time, but CMD will tell you many files copied after completion(hopefully no errors:D)
You can ad /e switch, as it was suggested, if you like - behind /s /e

Thanks for this - unfortunately, I did not have any joy with this....the command prompt opens as C:\ Documents and Settings \ Maidhci not as C: It is not possible to use the delete key to remove the path provided. Anyway, thanks for your help.

smuggler.ie

Ignore what location it open, just type comand as soon you have CMD open (username in command has to be name of you log to pc)

xcopy C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\My Documents USBdriveletter:\foldername\ /s

Command will do the rest

Ten Pin

Should there be quote marks (") around the folder path because there are spaces in the folder names?

Maidhci

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Ignore what location it open, just type comand as soon you have CMD open (username in command has to be name of you log to pc)

xcopy C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\My Documents USBdriveletter:\foldername\ /s

Command will do the rest

I had done this, exactly as above, without success, on two occasions, before the last post, so I assumed the problem was related to the fact that the CMD was open at Documents and Settings.

smuggler.ie

What error do you get (if any)?

In your previous post you typed command/path with lot of spaces in path

Maidhci wrote: »

...the command prompt opens as C:\ Documents and Settings \ Maidhci not as C:.....

double check you command - there should be only spaces i pointed in first my post.

xcopyspaceC:\Documents and Settings\username\My DocumentsspaceRBackupJan2018\space/s

only change:
1. R - to letter you see on you PC for USB drive.
2. username - to your logon name OR type % on each side of username(actual word USERNAMEin this case)
Leave rest as is

@mods! is there reason i cant type username variable? For some reason it gets removed and leave ame% only.

scamalert

Maidhci wrote: »

I had done this, exactly as above, without success, on two occasions, before the last post, so I assumed the problem was related to the fact that the CMD was open at Documents and Settings.

not sure it has relation to where its open but simple cd c:\

will bring you to c drive or whatever letter is there directory,you can use dir to see which directory your in.Rest is out of my knowledge how to use copy or switches

also run cmd as admin right click run as administrator,even thou i imagine your the only user.

smuggler.ie

scamalert wrote: »

not sure it has relation to where its open but simple cd c:\

will bring you to c drive or whatever letter is there directory,you can use dir to see which directory your in.Rest is out of my knowledge how to use copy or switches

Despite you're right how to change directory, I just didn't want to add any extra complexity to this matter. Command provided clearly states to act on source in the path C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents so there is no need for any extra actions or navigation.

...also run cmd as admin right click run as administrator,even thou i imagine your the only user.

Again,not mentioned this to reduce complexity. User, by default, should have full permissions to his/her own directory's, therefore no need for any extra actions. Other ways user would not be able to copy files from Windows Explorer(that way it was called in XP).

But give me moment, i will get VM set up and will do test on user(no admin) account. It's ages since i had XP .

Would help if OP would post what error he/she gets