How to prevent duplicate images after start menu crash

Abel Magwitch · 23 Feb 2016

I suddenly lost my start menu. After trying several failed fixes I ended up creating a new user. I downloaded my pictures folder to an external drive and attempted to upload them into the new user pictures folder using Teracopy. Teracopy is now stuck at 97%. I can stop Teracopy but I need to add the missing (but unknown) last 3% of images to the folder. How can I do this by over copying the folder without creating duplicates?
If I knew which images, and videos, are missing I could just copy them to the new folder, but there is no list of missing images. So, I want to copy the images over again but have an option to skip all possible duplicates.

Help would be great

Abel

dalchina · 23 Feb 2016

Hello, welcome to tenforums.

WinMerge comes to mind to identify the differences in your folders.
WinMerge download | SourceForge.net
Older program, but still works as far as I can see..

You might wish to run chkdsk to verify your disks to see if there's an underlying cause for your copy failure and even - perhaps- your start menu failure, although that could be for other reasons too of course.

E.g.
Win key + X, click command prompt (admin)
chkdsk C:\ /F
for drive C etc.

To help recover from future failures and problems in Win 10, which is relatively immature, if you haven't done so, set up a daily scheduled task to set a restore point, and enable System Restore which is off by default in Win 10, oddly enough.

Regularly updated 3rd party disk imaging is a fantastic way to secure your system, your data, and your sanity, allowing recovery to a previously working state in, say, 20 mins or less without technical help. E.g. Macrium Reflect (free) + boot disk + external storage medium. Really essential. Others: Veeam Endpoint backup, Aomei Backupper...

PiKo · 23 Feb 2016

I am very enthusiastic about FreeFileTransfer. It is able to synchronize (you choose the sync direction) and sees the differences. I always uses it for backups.

PiKo · 23 Feb 2016

Correction: FreeFileSync

Abel Magwitch · 25 Feb 2016

Thanks guys.
What I have learned is the crash and start menu loss is due to an automatic update to win 10, combined with the non readiness of my laptop caused by Samsung's tardiness in the updated driver department. I have had to bkup everything so I can go back to 8.1. Unless/until Samsung send me the awaited driver I will remain in 8.1.
C'est la vie.

dalchina · 26 Feb 2016

That made me look at my settings for a scheduled restart where an update requires a restart. To my horror, I found it had been reset to Automatic (recommended).

I didn't do that... so that's not good.