ROBOCOPY follow-up

A couple of months ago, I asked for help in finding software to
selected files on my home and work computers, using a USB stick.
Someone recommended ROBOCOPY. I reported at the time that it
correctly accounted for the fact that FAT32 (on the USB stick)
keeping time only to the nearest 2 seconds. (COPY commands would copy
a new file to the USB stick, then copy it back because the file time
on the USB stick was slightly later that the source file's time.)

After yesterday's time change, I can also report that ROBOCOPY
correctly accounts for FAT32 and NTFS being out of sync by an hour on
the first day after switching between daylight and standard time (in
either direction). In the past, my batch file copied +everything+ in
one direction or the other twice a year; but ROBOCOPY copied only the
files that I had actually updated.

Thanks once again to the person or persons who suggested it!

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...

On Mon, 9 Mar 2015 05:32:17 -0400, Stan Brown
wrote:



After yesterday's time change, I can also report that ROBOCOPY
correctly accounts for FAT32 and NTFS being out of sync by an hour on
the first day after switching between daylight and standard time (in
either direction). In the past, my batch file copied +everything+ in
one direction or the other twice a year; but ROBOCOPY copied only the
files that I had actually updated.

Thanks once again to the person or persons who suggested it!

Not the guy who recommended it (at least, I don't think I am :-) but I
appreciate the follow-up.

Can anyone confrim the following related.

If a flash drive, when plugged in, is seen as a flash drive by the
system, Windows sees the one hour time difference after time change.

If the flash drive is seen by the system as a regular drive, the flash
drive reports "correctly". i.e. no one hour difference.

If so, maybe that is why manufactureres are making their flash drives
report as regular drives.

I have several newer flash drives that do not report as USB flash but
as regular drives.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

On 09/03/2015 15:14, OldeGuye wrote:
Can anyone confrim the following related.

If a flash drive, when plugged in, is seen as a flash drive by the
system, Windows sees the one hour time difference after time change.

If the flash drive is seen by the system as a regular drive, the flash
drive reports "correctly". i.e. no one hour difference.

If so, maybe that is why manufactureres are making their flash drives
report as regular drives.

I have several newer flash drives that do not report as USB flash but as
regular drives.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

I don't know. I've just tried several flash drives of various vintages -
and they all show up as "Removable Disk" - whereas an external hard
drive which is USB-connected shows up as "Local Disk".

This business with the one hour time difference drives me mad! I use a
flash drive to synchronise files between 2 computers - using XXCOPY
rather than ROBOCOPY - and tell it only to copy files which are newer.
But every time there's a Summer/Winter time change (daylight saving
hours to some) it invariably thinks that files which are unchanged since
the last time are newer - and proceeds to copy them again. I've tried
all the various switches in XXCOPY - but haven't yet found a sure-fire
way of only copying what I want.

More recently, I've been using an external hard drive for the transfers
- rather than a flash drive - and I think I've observed that behaving in
the same perverse way - but I'm not absolutely certain. If it *does*,
the problem may have nothing to do with whether or not it thinks it's a
flash drive.
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

Roger Mills wrote:
On 09/03/2015 15:14, OldeGuye wrote:
Can anyone confrim the following related.

If a flash drive, when plugged in, is seen as a flash drive by the
system, Windows sees the one hour time difference after time change.

If the flash drive is seen by the system as a regular drive, the flash
drive reports "correctly". i.e. no one hour difference.

If so, maybe that is why manufactureres are making their flash drives
report as regular drives.

I have several newer flash drives that do not report as USB flash but as
regular drives.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

I don't know. I've just tried several flash drives of various vintages -
and they all show up as "Removable Disk" - whereas an external hard
drive which is USB-connected shows up as "Local Disk".

This business with the one hour time difference drives me mad! I use a
flash drive to synchronise files between 2 computers - using XXCOPY
rather than ROBOCOPY - and tell it only to copy files which are newer.
But every time there's a Summer/Winter time change (daylight saving
hours to some) it invariably thinks that files which are unchanged since
the last time are newer - and proceeds to copy them again. I've tried
all the various switches in XXCOPY - but haven't yet found a sure-fire
way of only copying what I want.

More recently, I've been using an external hard drive for the transfers
- rather than a flash drive - and I think I've observed that behaving in
the same perverse way - but I'm not absolutely certain. If it *does*,
the problem may have nothing to do with whether or not it thinks it's a
flash drive.

The one hour time difference comes about because one drive is formatted
as FAT and the other as NTFS. Some sync programs have options to allow
for that.

--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England

On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 17:34:01 +0000, Mike Barnes wrote:

Roger Mills wrote:
On 09/03/2015 15:14, OldeGuye wrote:
Can anyone confrim the following related.

If a flash drive, when plugged in, is seen as a flash drive by the
system, Windows sees the one hour time difference after time change.

If the flash drive is seen by the system as a regular drive, the flash
drive reports "correctly". i.e. no one hour difference.

If so, maybe that is why manufactureres are making their flash drives
report as regular drives.

I have several newer flash drives that do not report as USB flash but as
regular drives.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

I don't know. I've just tried several flash drives of various vintages -
and they all show up as "Removable Disk" - whereas an external hard
drive which is USB-connected shows up as "Local Disk".

This business with the one hour time difference drives me mad! I use a
flash drive to synchronise files between 2 computers - using XXCOPY
rather than ROBOCOPY - and tell it only to copy files which are newer.
But every time there's a Summer/Winter time change (daylight saving
hours to some) it invariably thinks that files which are unchanged since
the last time are newer - and proceeds to copy them again. I've tried
all the various switches in XXCOPY - but haven't yet found a sure-fire
way of only copying what I want.

More recently, I've been using an external hard drive for the transfers
- rather than a flash drive - and I think I've observed that behaving in
the same perverse way - but I'm not absolutely certain. If it *does*,
the problem may have nothing to do with whether or not it thinks it's a
flash drive.

The one hour time difference comes about because one drive is formatted
as FAT and the other as NTFS. Some sync programs have options to allow
for that.

+1

The reason is that FAT times are the local time when the file is created
or changed, whereas NTFS times are UT.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

So what about exFAT.
I need to take a long look, but I think the ones that report as drives
are formatted that way.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 17:09:47 +0000, Roger Mills wrote:
This business with the one hour time difference drives me mad! I use a
flash drive to synchronise files between 2 computers - using XXCOPY
rather than ROBOCOPY - and tell it only to copy files which are newer.
But every time there's a Summer/Winter time change (daylight saving
hours to some) it invariably thinks that files which are unchanged since
the last time are newer - and proceeds to copy them again. I've tried
all the various switches in XXCOPY - but haven't yet found a sure-fire
way of only copying what I want.


ROBOCOPY was touted as an XXCOPY replacement, as I understand things.
As I posted earlier today, it handles the one-hour time difference
gracefully, just as advertised.

The difference arises because NTFS keeps time in UTC (as Linux does,
I believe) and converts it to local time for display; but FAT32 keeps
time in the local time zone, so when the time zone changes all the
file times are wrong.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...

On 09/03/2015 21:52, Stan Brown wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 17:09:47 +0000, Roger Mills wrote:
This business with the one hour time difference drives me mad! I use a
flash drive to synchronise files between 2 computers - using XXCOPY
rather than ROBOCOPY - and tell it only to copy files which are newer.
But every time there's a Summer/Winter time change (daylight saving
hours to some) it invariably thinks that files which are unchanged since
the last time are newer - and proceeds to copy them again. I've tried
all the various switches in XXCOPY - but haven't yet found a sure-fire
way of only copying what I want.


ROBOCOPY was touted as an XXCOPY replacement, as I understand things.
As I posted earlier today, it handles the one-hour time difference
gracefully, just as advertised.

I must try ROBOCOP when synchronising two computers via a USB drive. I
already use it for backing up my PC to a network drive because -
although it is within the T&Cs of the free version of XXCOPY to use it
on your own personal network - it nevertheless nags every time you do so.

I haven't found a way of getting ROBOCOPY to display the list of files
copied as it does them, in the same way as XXCOPY does. It either lists
*every* file it looks at - not just those copied - or nothing. I know
you can look in the log file after the event - but that's a fag. Anyone
know whether it can be made to do what I want?

The difference arises because NTFS keeps time in UTC (as Linux does,
I believe) and converts it to local time for display; but FAT32 keeps
time in the local time zone, so when the time zone changes all the
file times are wrong.


I'm now using an external hard drive - formatted as NTFS - for file
transfers rather than a FAT-formatted flash drive. My notion is that
this still exhibits the 'one hour' problem, but I'm not 100% certain.
We'll be starting "summertime" here in the UK at the end of March - so
I'll be able to test it properly!
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

On 3/10/2015 8:08 AM, Roger Mills wrote:
On 09/03/2015 21:52, Stan Brown wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 17:09:47 +0000, Roger Mills wrote:
This business with the one hour time difference drives me mad! I use a
flash drive to synchronise files between 2 computers - using XXCOPY
rather than ROBOCOPY - and tell it only to copy files which are newer.
But every time there's a Summer/Winter time change (daylight saving
hours to some) it invariably thinks that files which are unchanged since
the last time are newer - and proceeds to copy them again. I've tried
all the various switches in XXCOPY - but haven't yet found a sure-fire
way of only copying what I want.


ROBOCOPY was touted as an XXCOPY replacement, as I understand things.
As I posted earlier today, it handles the one-hour time difference
gracefully, just as advertised.

I must try ROBOCOP when synchronising two computers via a USB drive. I
already use it for backing up my PC to a network drive because -
although it is within the T&Cs of the free version of XXCOPY to use it
on your own personal network - it nevertheless nags every time you do so.

I haven't found a way of getting ROBOCOPY to display the list of files
copied as it does them, in the same way as XXCOPY does. It either lists
*every* file it looks at - not just those copied - or nothing. I know
you can look in the log file after the event - but that's a fag. Anyone
know whether it can be made to do what I want?

snip

Note that if you are copying a lot of files then listing the files in
the Robocopy log greatly extends its operating time. Why not just look
at the Robocopy ErrorLevel to see if it completed OK?

On Tue, 10 Mar 2015 12:08:24 +0000, Roger Mills wrote:
I haven't found a way of getting ROBOCOPY to display the list of files
copied as it does them, in the same way as XXCOPY does. It either lists
*every* file it looks at - not just those copied - or nothing. I know
you can look in the log file after the event - but that's a fag. Anyone
know whether it can be made to do what I want?

I use these options:

/FFT /DST /XJ /XO /R:1 /W:5 /NP /XC

Though it lists every directory, of files it lists only the ones it
actually copies.



--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...