How To Back Up?

I know about "Select All", but how can I be certain that I don't "overwrite" the wrong files?

I want to "combine" these 2 USB HDD's and at the end of the process have all of my files on 1 USB HDD and have the 2nd USB HDD be empty.

EDIT:
I wasn't clear in my earlier post so do you know what I meant when I said this? "The first USB HDD contains files "X, Y, Z" while the second USB HDD contains files "W, X, Y". Obviously I can't manually look through each USB HDD so I want to put all the files on one USB HDD."

Brink said:

Depending on exactly what you're wanting to do...

That's could be a very significant question. This thread started asking about backups and soon got into the details of using File History. Then it changed tack asking...

I have two USB HDD's here that contain my files and I want to "combine" them so that all the files on these two USB HDD's are located on one USB HDD.

Reading between the lines, I'm wondering if the files to be "combined" are in fact two different File History folders? While there are unlikely to be any duplicate file names in the Data subfolder that holds the backed up files (File History adds the date and time of the backup to each file name) it won't be possible to use File History to restore any of the files you paste there. That's because you can't use copy and paste to merge the database files (catalog.edb and Config.xml) held in the Configuration subfolder.

Simple enough scenario: Single user, single computer, with multiple File History folders.
Simple question: Is there any way to merge those two folders into one?

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...6-878fa7b95086

Bree said:

That's could be a very significant question. This thread started asking about backups and soon got into the details of using File History. Then it changed tack asking...

I was going to create a new thread that was specifically about how to "Combine 2 USB HDD's" but I didn't want to waste forum space.

Reading between the lines, I'm wondering if the files to be "combined" are in fact two different File History folders? While there are unlikely to be any duplicate file names in the Data subfolder that holds the backed up files (File History adds the date and time of the backup to each file name) it won't be possible to use File History to restore any of the files you paste there. That's because you can't use copy and paste to merge the database files (catalog.edb and Config.xml) held in the Configuration subfolder.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...6-878fa7b95086

The 2 USB HDD's I want to combine are not in any way related to File History. They're just 2 USB HDD's that contain my music, photos, documents and so on.

Brink said:

I suppose you could create a new folder on the USB, and copy all the files form the other USB into the new folder. This way you don't have to worry about overwriting any duplicate files.

Thanks, but there are many folders I want to combine and many sub-folders within these folders...

Thanks for your reply!

So I'd need to go through each folder one by one? That'll take me a really long time... Is there another way I can do this?

NiceAndShy said:

The 2 USB HDD's I want to combine are not in any way related to File History. They're just 2 USB HDD's that contain my music, photos, documents and so on.

That's a relief!

If you use File Explorer to copy and paste all files/folders from one disk to the other for any duplicate folder names you'll be asked:



If you tick 'Do this for all current item' and click Yes the folders will be merged. If duplicate file names are found you'll see:



Click 'Let me decide for each file' to get:



Now un-tick 'Skip...' at the bottom and tick both the 'Files from... ' and 'Files already in...' boxes at the top. A number will be added to any duplicate files you want to paste. If a file called image.jpg already exist the file of the same name you are trying to paste there will be renamed as image (2).jpg

NB: for a large amount of data this can take a very long time discovering all the files to copy and calculating the estimated time to complete. You may want to do the copying in smaller manageable chunks.

I would use Free File Sync:
FreeFileSync - Free Backup and File Synchronization Software