How do I use xcopy to copy an XP "Program Files" hierarchy in Win2
Magpie
files ("Program Files") located on another disk (NTFS partition). Whenever I
do this the disk I'm copying to (same one that has Win2K on it, but a
different partition) gets trashed - I loose my Win2K partition (FAT32), my
backup partition (have tried both FAT32 & NTFS) [the one I'm copying to] and
another partition which is not being used. Initially I suspected the disk
(both are DiamondMax Plus9 160Gb's) but the maxtor support utilities report
that the disks are definitely OK. I'm now going to use robocopy whilst
running XP and I appreciate I could use backup. Regardless of whether what
I'm trying to do is sensible, what concerns me is how or why I loose 3
partitions from my disk when doing an xcopy - any ideas ? I believe I also
saw the problem when using explorer to do the same thing. Is there something
special about XP files that Win2K does not recognise ? Could there be a
problem if I copy system/hidden files ? The trashing of the partitions is
reproducible, so this is not a one off problem. It's worrying that it's so
easy to corrupt a disk.
Stig
Windows XP crashes / trashes my 160Gb disks because it simply don't
know how to handle large disks - is my conclusion after long
tests!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's not the BIOS - tried changing that. Tried atleast 2 new mobo's.
Yeah! I suspected my disks also - but I have 3 of them and they all
present the same problem...
I get same error using either Windows 2000 or Windows XP, when copying
between the disks - inside a PC or through network. Numerous times
windows has just trashed its own disks when copying with either xcopy
or the explorer (GUI drag'n drop). It doesn't matter how you copy -
the problem is in Windows....
Probable an overflow occur somewhere and *POW* bye...bye...bye...
Typical Microsoft - no error-handling - no proper error-propagation in
the code. The presenting of blue-screen-of-death should give you a
fair idea about the quality of the code...
I like FAT32 because it gives 150Gb free on a 160Gb disk - while NTFS
gives maybe 128Gb... (well, that's what is says). I'm not so sure NTFS
is absolutely perfect for large disks...
Trashing data is a major pain for me. I'm considering to change to
Linux just to hande my data. This seems to be the only known solution
right now, if you want to use large disks.
Otherwise we simply have to wait until enough people start using the
large disks and make it Microsoft's problem...
So if you haven't tried a 160Gb yet with Windows - sit back and get
ready for a surprise!!! Good luck recovering your data from the
Windows disk!
BTW: I'm not a frequent reader of this group, so you might drop me a
line if necessary.
regards
Stig Valentini
Background: I'm a M.Sc.EE . Owned a PC since 1988. Did assembly from
the start, C, C++, Java,... I've been all into Int21h, Int13h... Did
TSR's in the good old days. So... Maybe I'm not the greatest expert -
but I've definitely been around!
Magpie
Even using robocopy I still run into problems but my partition has not been
totally trashed yet.
It's very worrying that there seems to be some issue with Microsoft OS's and
large 160G disks. It would seem to be some sort of buffering or caching
issue. I did tell my disks not to write cache, as an experiment, but that
made no difference to the original problem. I've also tried FAT32 & NTFS but
again I still experience problems. With FAT32 as my target partition my disk
is totally trashed, wheras I think with NTFS as the target partition just the
NTFS partition being written to suffers some corruption (detetected by chkdsk
on reboot). Loosing / having your disks trashed by the OS is unacceptable but
there seems little we can do about it other than hope Microsoft addresses the
issue soon.
It would be interesting to hear from anyone else who has also experienced
their 160G disks being corrupted by XP or Win2K.