urgently need DOS file copy utility!![RESOLVED]

Hi all.

My C drive died yesterday morning. Since I've been using it for 6 years, I was satisfied to go out and buy a new one.

But,,
now I have discovered a few folders of files that I hadn't backed up (somehow), amounting to about 1,000 files.

So I just spent the whole day trying to extract the files. The problem of the broken disc is that, the MBR seems to be corrupted, and the FAT32 table stays corrupted. After running several scandisks off a boot floppy, I see that it won't be repaired. Since a scandisk can't complete, I can't re-install an OS on it, even tried win95.

So I reformatted another one of my hard drives to FAT32 (all the rest were ntfs) and went into DOS to copy the files. Don't ask me why but the disc will show up intact under DOS, but won't boot under win98 or XP. Both stall at boot up. I even tried to trick it by plugging the IDE cable after boot, but when it discovers the disc, it stalls again.

So, what I need,....
I found several ways to copy the files in DOS, including COPY , XCOPY, and by using Easy Recovery Pro's emergency DOS diskette to do a recovery on the disc.
The problem is they are all coming back 8.3. I thought I was out of the woods when I got all of the files onto the other drive, only to reboot and find them all in 8.3 (myfile~1.doc). I wouldn't gripe, but it's about 1000 files.

I found an app called xxcopy freeware, but the 16bit (DOS) version only preserves the short name.

Is there an app that can copy entire dirs and subdirs in DOS, and preserve the long filenames too?

Please let me know of it. Thanks!!!

Wengang

its been awhile but...

XCOPY SOURCE DEST /E

will copy the sub folders, even empty ones (change /E to /S if u dont want empty dirs)

so eg:

XCOPY C:\*.* D:\MyBackup /E

Where c:\ is the broken drive and d:\ is the backup drive.

can't you put an OS on the new drive, and then copy the files?

Hey all.
Resolved!

No, I'd already tried XCOPY. The problem was when I went back into Windows, the files were all 8.3 (like myfile~1.doc instead of my file whose name was also important.doc) and it turned out to be 4000 files, not 1000. I couldn't have tolerated having to rename them all.

dglienna, I'd tried that. I installed both win98 and winXP but neither one would boot up with the broken disc attached to the IDE cable. That's what I was saying before. I even tried to unplug it while the OS read the FAT table and then replug it, but when device manager detected it, the system froze in both OSs. I even tried to install Win95. The disc clearly broke in such a way that its file system could be read under DOS but not under windows (for one brief moment I got the disc to show up in XP, and when I clicked it open, it came up unformatted, format now?)

Anyway, having installed XP on another drive (my new Seagate 160GB), I searched the web and found a small app called Odi's Long Filename DOS Support (or sth like that). This was basically a clone of XCOPY with the advantage of being able to type in, copy, and save full length filenames, instead of 8.3 format (just like from a cmd line in XP). ANd since it ran under DOS, I was able to send the files over to another FAT32 drive. Well, a whole Saturday got wasted just trying to retrieve MY DOCUMENTS. Finally I did get them, though, and I'll be backing them up much more regularly. Lesson learned.

Thanks guys.

Add the Checkmark and the word [RESOLVED] to the subject of the first post in your thread
if your question has been answered satisfactorily.

I'm trying to get into the habit. Advise to the adminstrator:

You should have a button on the thread page for the user who posted the original message, and the click will add [RESOLVED] and the check mark to the title.

That way, you'd probably see more people doing it, rather than have them go back and edit the original post.

Just a thought.

Thanks again.

I suggested that already, but it would require them to re-write code, and they don't like to do *that* unless it is required.

I figure, as more people see the checkmark, then they will start using it willingly...

Quote:

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Originally posted by wengang
I'm trying to get into the habit. Advise to the adminstrator:

You should have a button on the thread page for the user who posted the original message, and the click will add [RESOLVED] and the check mark to the title.

That way, you'd probably see more people doing it, rather than have them go back and edit the original post.

Just a thought.

Thanks again.

---

Sounds like a job for John Percival (designer of vBulletin). Don't think he comes around this site any more though.

I wrote a nearly exact clone of vBulletin last year (just for fun, and I used ASP)
but it wouldn't be a very big change to the code