COMPUTER INFO

Since XP, Windows has accurate a technology alleged Volume Shadow Copy, which is acclimated to ability the antecedent versions affection in Vista as able-bodied as System Restore and backups. What it does is booty a acting snapshot of the book or drive, and again acquiesce an appliance to apprehend from the snapshot alike while added applications are accessing or modifying the file.

What we can do is use a command band account alleged HoboCopy that utilizes this account to archetype the file.

HoboCopy and best added advancement utilities accomplish use of two casework in Windows, and you’ll charge to verify that these casework are not disabled:

* Volume Shadow Copy

* Microsoft Software Shadow Archetype Provider

They can be larboard as Manual startup, so they don’t charge to be active all the time. Hobocopy will alpha the two casework automatically aback needed, and the Volume Shadow Archetype account will be angry aback off afterwards it’s done.

The syntax is a little weird, because HoboCopy is absolutely meant to be acclimated for abetment up an absolute set of folders. We can use it to advancement a distinct book by casual in the filename altercation at the end.

Note: on Windows Vista you will charge to barrage an Administrator approach command alert by right-clicking on the Command alert in the alpha card and allotment Run as Administrator.

hobocopy c:\directoryname\ d:\backupdirectory\

For example, I appetite to advancement my c:\users\geek\mail\outlook.pst book to d:\backups\outlook.pst. Here’s the syntax that I’d use:

C:\> hobocopy c:\users\geek\mail\ d:\backups\ Outlook.pst

HoboCopy (c) 2006 Wangdera Corporation. hobocopy@wangdera.com

Starting a abounding archetype from c:\users\geek\mail to d:\backups\

Affected directory

Advancement started at 2008-03-09 01:57:28, completed at 2008-03-09 01:58:39.

1 files (606.45 MB, 1 directories) copied, 7 files skipped

A abundant added advantageous assignment would be to advancement my absolute User folder, apparently to an alien adamantine drive for safekeeping. For this, we’ll appetite to add a brace of command-line arguments.

/full Copy all files

/skipdenied Ignore any admission denied letters because of permission errors.

/r Copy recursively

/y Don’t prompt, aloof archetype everything

Syntax:

hobocopy /full /skipdenied /y /r c:\directoryname\ d:\backupdirectory\

Let’s go with the aforementioned example, I appetite to advancement my absolute user agenda to d:\backups\, so I’d use this command:

hobocopy /full /skipdenied /y /r c:\users\geek\ d:\backups\

This command will acceptable booty a actual continued time to complete, so you ability appetite to booty a nap or something. At the end you should accept a about absolute archetype of the directory… if there are any permission errors you’ll be alerted to files that didn’t copy. Realistically any files in your user agenda shouldn’t accept this problem.

Hobocopy additionally supports abetment up files incrementally, so it will alone archetype the files that accept afflicted back the aftermost backup. This works analogously to utilities like rsync, except hobocopy food the aftermost advancement date in a book that you charge to specify on the command line.

/statefile=filename This banderole specifies the book that contains the aftermost advancement information.

/incremental Only archetype files that accept afflicted back the aftermost abounding copy.

hobocopy /incremental /statefile=filename /y /r c:\directoryname\ d:\backupdirectory\

Example:

hobocopy /incremental /statefile=d:\lastbackup.dat /y /r c:\users\geek\ d:\backups\

The aboriginal time that you run this command you will charge to use /full instead of /incremental, or abroad you will get an absurdity because the accompaniment book hasn’t been created yet. After that you can run the incremental advancement with the /incremental switch.

This would be an accomplished way to automatically advancement a set of folders as allotment of a appointed task.

Download HoboCopy from sourceforge.net