WinXP Question: Easily Sync Files Across Multiple Hard Drives

[gareth]

I have a general enough question about XP.

I have a folder of files on my PC HD, I constantly adding to these. I also store the files on my external HD and my laptop. I add to the files on these three HD's regularly.

To keep all folders up to date I have to see what I have in each or else copy and paste the whole lot into the new foler. This takes some time as there are a lot of files.

There must be an easier way; I have tried using the 'Briefcase' facility but that only updates files you are working on and doesn't copy over new files (not that I can see anyway)

Anyone know the solution here?

thanks

 

[cristo]

Apparently, xp comes with its own backup programme. I've never used it, though:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/bott_03july14.mspx

 

[gareth]

yes I am aware of this, it's not really suitable though. It creates a 'backup' which you need to re-create if you want to view the files. As I use the files daily this is quite cumbersome

 

[mgb_phys]

On windows you need two kinds of backups:
An image backup of the entire drive that you can use to restore the whole OS if something goes bad - you can't do this on windows by simply copying the files, and ironically you can't do it with the windows backup program either!
You need somethign like acronis or ghost or my favorite http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/ - these can also mount your backup file as a drive so you can extract individual files.

For copying files that have been changed you can use either the builtin xcopy command.
eg. xcopy *.doc d: /s/d/y/c will backup all word files, only coping those that are newer.
There is also robocopy availabe from microsoft (part of the server resource kit free download) which will also watch a directory and copy anything that changes.

You can use the windows schedular to run these every day/week etc.

 

[gareth]

thanks,

I found a solution that should work I think. Make briefcases on every PC I use and link them to my external HD. Evertime I plug in the EXHD I can update things. Not elegent but it will do the job!

 

[jsg7377]

Gareth,

I don't know if either of your computers has an internet connection, but if they both do check this out:

https://www.foldershare.com/learnmore.aspx

Its free from Microsoft. I use it to keep the files on my Desktop and Laptop in sync via the internet.

 

[gareth]

that's a very handy tool, thanks jsg7377.

 

[gareth]

there's one thing bugging me about it though, when I add a folder to the syn library, it indicates it has 0 files in it (which it does not on my desktop).

What am I doing wrong?