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Copying data from a search to new folder retaining structure

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StressedTechie

Technical User
Jul 13, 2001
367
GB
Long title sorry!

Basically what I want to do is search our server for any old data between 1980 and 1999. Windows finds these files fine but my problem lies in the actual copying of the files.

I have created another folder that I want to pull all this old data into. If I copy the contents of the search window to the folder the files leave there folder structures behind and appear all grouped together in the new folder. Some archived folders contain the same file name so they could overwrite each other. No idea ho best to do this. Any ideas

Cheers
 
This isn't exactly the easy way, but you could make a copy of the filesystem to an external drive, one that keeps the creation/modified dates intact. Then do a search on that drive for anything newer than 1999, and then delete all non-folders in those search results. Then you'd know that the only thing that the drive contained would be old files and an empty folder system.

It would be nice if XCOPY could work, but it only copies files made on or after a particular date, not before.

You could use XCOPY to copy a folder hierarchy, without including the files, if that would be helpful.

Ideally there's some archiving application out there that would allow you to set the dates you cared about and then copy only those files. That would create the appropriate folder structures as well.

ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting
 
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