Hello,
I want to copy files and folders recursively from one local NTFS drive to another and retain all the properties of the source files, i.e. secutity settings, file ownership, the attributes for compression, hidden, system and readonly etc. It should be possible to copy the files back later in the same way and to get exactly the same file structure as it has been before the copy.
There are no open files involved but some files have owners that are not known to the running XP installation. Some files also have restricted access even for administrators, which is why "xcopy /o /x /e /h /k" fails to do this job. This applies i.e. to certain user folders in the XP "Documents and Settings" folder. I don't want to change anything on the source drive to make the copy possible.
I'd prefer to use a command line tool but a GUI tool would be fine as well. I'm not looking for backup tools that store the files in proprietary file formats like *.bkf or whatever.
Thank you for your help.
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Thank you r-k for your comment. I already use a different installation of Windows to access the source disk. It is not the one that was booted from, neither is the destination disk. But even then the files are not accessible.
I tought it should be possible somehow to read these files since backup tools are able to access such files for backup purposes which is more or less what I want to do, only that I want the destination to be a exact copy of the directory tree.
give NTBackup a try. It will create a backup file but all you have to do is restore the files to the new drive and they should retain their attributes.
run nt backup
backup the original folders to a folder on your hard disk or to an external hard drive
now use nt backup to restore the files to the new partition then delete the ntbackup backup file
you should have the files in the new location with their attributes.
Thanks for the hint elgrullo420. However this ntbackup detour is what used before. What I need is a faster and less space consuming way to do the copy in one step without the need to store a huge intermediate archive. Although something like tar c * | tar x would be fine, but I couldn't find a way to make ntbackup read and write from or to streams.
The backup operators group have the ability to read all files regardless of permissions but only usind the backup tool. So if the administrator/backup operators do not have permissions on the files they will not be able to read them unless they use the backup program. Backup operators cannot use tools like xcopy or robocoby to access files on which they have no permisssions - this is be design - it whould be a big security loophole otherwise.
You can't access the files from another windows installation since you are not recognised at a valid user. You could take ownership of the files but you have stated that yo do not want to do this.
I'm afraid that what you want to do is not possible with the restictions you are placing on the task.
You should be able to run the backup with robocopy.exe and the /b (or /zb) switch, which will run the copy operation in backup mode.
So reading the data is not the problem. The main problem here, and, backup operators or not, there's nothing you can do to overcome that, is copying the permissions.
If the account you're using doesn't have write permissions in the *source* folder, and you're copying the permissions, the account won't have write permissions in the *target* folder anymore, so for the very obvious reason the write operation will fail.
So to sum up the two choices you have:
- You can have a full backup using backup software (and the file format the backup software uses).
- You can have a backup without the permissions using robocopy.exe (and the original folder structure).
That's one of the reasons the local Administrators account and the System account should always be included in the ACLs with Full access permissions.
robocopy can be found here (check robocopy.doc for details):
Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools
http://www.microsoft.com/d
another option you may want to look into is xxcopy which is very similar to xcopy. uses all the same commands but im my case i came across as well an issue with over 256 characters being in the path. xxcopy allowed my to copy my entire user folders on a 450 user Active Directory box very quickly.
http://www.xxcopy.com/inde
the personal use works fine unless you need to copy across a network and then you would need the registered one
Business Accounts
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by: r-kPosted on 2007-05-05 at 06:57:05ID: 19036351
"Some files also have restricted access even for administrators"
I can't see how you can copy them then, because Windows will prevent you.
The only way possibly is to boot from another disk (e.g. a bootable CD) and copy them that way.
If you're doing this for routine backups then perhaps create a special Backup user and give them permission to read those files.
Someone else may have a better idea.