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Copying data to new server, overcoming permissions/ownership issues?

I've been using combinations of XCopy, Robocopy, Total Commander or good old drag and drop to move data to new servers over the last couple of years.

Every now and then none of these programs can copy over some files because the user has taken ownership and removed read permission for the Administrators group. So you have to go through taking ownership then recreating permissions. It's always been a problem but is a bigger one this time!

So I'm just wondering what are others using to get around this? My understanding is backup programs can overcome this and backup these files regardless of the permissions, does that mean the only way of getting everything copied across while truly maintaining permissions is to back the folders up with NTBackup then restore to the new server? Is there any program like Total Commander that could run as a member of the Backup Operators group and do this?

Thanks!

SOLUTION

oBdA

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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

zoofan

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Zenith63

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oBdA - Have you had a problem where copying the ownership stops you writing to the destination? It makes sense that it could be an issue, just wondering how common it is? That /ZB switch is definitely handy to know, but not copying ownership would be an issue if you're using Quotas.

zoofan - That's pretty cool now! It copies over the files without permissions, then applies the permissions afterwards to overcome the issue oBdA mentioned with Robocopy and /ZB. I'm trying it out now, looks good so far. The only thing is you don't get much control over the destination folder naming, it would be nice to choose the exact source and desination folder. As it is it creates a folder structure on the destination like OLDFILESERVER.DOMAIN.LOCAL\SHARENAME. Maybe I can edit the XML project files to improve this!

Zenith63

ASKER

My mistake, you actually can be specific with the destination of files in FSMT, excellent!

Thanks for the help.