What's the best way to copy large numbers of files (to include entire directories) from one disk to another?

I run into this when moving data for organizational purposes as well as when backing up important things. For example, I may want to periodically copy my entire "C:\" drive to a "C_20090618" directory on an external drive, probably overnight.

If you use Explorer and just mark all the folders and drag (or copy and paste) them to the other drive, several things can trip you up. There are these "thumbnail" files whose copy you have to explicitly approve. And "read only" files – there are always a few of those, and these require approval. And open files. And system files. If you try to do this overnight, you may find in the morning that your system stopped after ten minutes and is patiently waiting for a Yes or No from you.

I have tried to prepare for the copy by deleting all the thumbnail files and changing the status of all the read-only files, but that can take a very long time when big directories are involved. I don't see any options to refrain from asking for approval and press on, or to ignore these types of files.

I thought of going to the Command Prompt and issuing the "copy" command there, but I don't think that the available flags would protect me from the problems stated above. Just maybe "xcopy" would work, but I suspect there are things that will stop it.

I didn't want to get into using backup or imaging software, as I want any backed-up files to be individually accessible and any moved directory structures to be identical after the move.

Any ideas out there?

Unfortunately you have to use specialized software to copy the entire windows partition. There's Acronis, Partition Manager, and a variety of other software packages both free and commercial. You need some kind of imaging or partition management software. Some of them run on windows but some you have to boot into.

Generally, when I'd back up a C: drive, I made it a point to exclude the WINDOWS directory, since it was data and not o/s that I wanted to save.

I think that some of those software packages will allow you to image just your files.

With Acronis, you can browse the backup and work with a single file, folder or entire directory tree. By far the best backup software I've found. Cheap, no, but you get what you pay for.

Thanks.

I was also trying to figure out the best way to move entire directory structures from one drive to another, as much for continued use as for backing up. I do have Acronis and will be using it for backup purposes.

I did have some success using xcopy at the Command Prompt, with suitable options. I'll post these as soon as I get them worked out.

When I use xcopy to copy entire directory trees, I use:

xcopy spurce target /s/h/r/i/k/e/y (that's shrike with a y added, easy for me to remember).

Pretty much what I came up with by trial and error. Thanks!