Need Help Copying Files

[bubarooni1]

OK, to be truthful, I need help copying a ridiculously large amount of files!

The folder in question, contains 318,970 bmp's with a total size of 1.78 GB's. I need to copy them all into another folder on a new computer the vendor supplied to replace the old computer. The bmp's are digital signatures that we are required to keep for seven years.

I slapped the old harddrive into a usb external harddrive holder and copied the folder onto the desktop of the new computer with no problem.

However, if I try to open the folder to select the individual files to copy, My Computer and Windows Explorer both stop responding and sometimes the whole machine quits. I then tried to xcopy32 the files from the target folder to the destination folder which started copying the files, but that used up all the system resources and locked up the computer too.

I'm clueless at how else to go about it. I'm thinking the xcopy32 would be the way to go but I need some trick to slow it down so it releases system resoures bac to the computer. Or something...

Like I said, I'm clueless and will appreciate any suggestions!

 

[Davetoo]

Why not burn them to a DVD?

I'm Certifiable, not cert-ified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

There are no more PDC's! There are DC's with FSMO roles!

 

[JockMullin]

The problem with opening a folder with so many files in Explorer or any graphical file browser is the browser tries to load all the directory info into memory so it can sort it and present it to you. This takes quite a long time and a large amount of memory. During the time it is happening explorer will seem to be hung, and if you meanwhile force it to close or anything else then it just exacerbates the situation. And you may run out of memory.

The best way to do this would be via a DOS prompt or a batch file to first of all split the files into separate folders which would be more manageable.

Is there any basis, such as filename prefix, which can be used to segment the files? You say you want to move them selectively - based on what?

For example, if the files are alphabetically named, you could open a cmd window (start/run/cmd) and then at the dos prompt type cd desktop and then cd <folder> then you will be in the <folder> you created on the desktop.

Now you make subfolders - for example if you wanted to split the files by letter of the alphabet:

md Afiles
md Bfiles
...
md Zfiles

Then
move a*.* afiles

will move all files starting with the letter a to the afiles folder in one fell swoop.

Once you have done all the letters of the alphabet, what will be left in the main folder will be only files not starting with a letter. And the subfolders you have created will each contain a more manageable number of files which you can then process with Explorer if you wish.

Jock

 

[linney]

Have you tried copying them from Safe Mode just using the normal Windows copy process?

 

[BadBigBen]

Another thing jumps to mind...

Maximum path length
An absolute path may be up to 32767 characters long; a relative path is limited to 255 characters.

source: Wikipedia

seeing that the Desktop is actually "c:/Documents and Setting/[user name]/Desktop" and now add the name of the folder and subfolders that the BMP reside in, could very well exceed the 255 character length and windows will bong...

remedy, move the folder to either C: or another partition, or as mentioned burn it onto a DVD...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[thefourthwall]

You can use Robocopy. It is a cmd line-based tool from Microsoft designed to copy and/or move huge directories with ease.

Quick, no gui to crash, it's an amazing tool; I use it for backing up approximately 15GB of data a week with minimal effort.

 

[Diancecht]

I hope you don't have the thumbnails option activated ...

Cheers,
Dian

 

[Freestone]

And perhaps the Folder option Do not cache thumbnails should be enabled...