Copying files but path is too long...

[andrew12]

Hello all,

I'm copying user data from one of our servers to a netapp filer but am receiving a 'path too long' error.

I believe this is because the path to some files is greater than 255 (260?) characters long.

I truncated the name of the first couple of files that produced an error but more and more of them appeared and I wasn't prepared to rename dozens and dozens of files/directories.

Is there a way round this? The users are unfortunately not prepared to do any work on their file naming...

 

[itsp1965]

Try running the SUBST command from DOS which will enable you to substitute a drive letter for a long path. That way you should be able to get your copy accomplished

 

[andrew12]

Thanks for that.

So putting it in very simple terms I would need to map a drive to the parent directory and the carry out an xcopy in DOS?

 

[andrew12]

Further to what I wrote above I've done a bit of testing.

I created a test directory structure with nonsensical folder names just to create a path that was too long for a normal drag and drop copy.

I then ran xcopy and got an Insufficient Memory error! I checked on Microsoft's site and the nearest explanation I could find was that there were too many I/Os going on.

Has anyone experienced this before?

 

[itsp1965]

Andrew, a SUBST command is not the same as a drive mapping. You can say for instance SUBST x: c:\dir1\subdir1\subdir2\.... up to lets say the last level of the directory tree (max 255th char). from there you can CD to any level below and copy your files.
Where you received an error is possibly due to the amount of memory required to process your test copy request.