Cyberlink and Feedback Hub | Robocopy Mirroring Part II

The time stamps are critical.

I am copying to an NTFS Seagate 1 T drive.

I thought later the Robocopy does not like the "my" in "my.linux.pictures.backup".

I thought that I would change that file name and any others that might derail the works.

Still curious where Robocopy got file names that that are not in my tree?

Is not My Music My Pictures a XP / Visa era relic?

Changed the name of my.linux....

On running the command again I received another error to the effect of "My Videos"

Ran it once again. Like with the others it went away.
These show in the tee version but not in the Folder list.
0 C:\Users\mikei\Documents\My Music\
0 C:\Users\mikei\Documents\My Pictures\
0 C:\Users\mikei\Documents\My Videos\

The command ran to the end of Documents.
Mission accomplished, it seems?

But I have all the subfolders in a right from root folder "Documents."

I think that you or somebody says that this syntax requires an established destination directory?

But I have a lot of files from other sources where /mir created the directory. I started skimming the article but have yet to get very far. Seems there was something in there regarding this?

I did not do that for this run.

If you have any thoughts on the red print that appeared at the very end I will appreciate your thoughts.

This seems to bear on the following error message? But this is beyond my current skills. I have not been able to find a simple explanation. What is a positional parameter?
...............................................

PS C:\Users\mikei> PS C:\Users\mikei> ROBOCOPY C:\Users\mikei\Doc
uments I:\HP.Files /MIR /XD "C:\Users\mikei\Documents\FeedbackHub
" "C:\Users\mikei\Documents\Cyberlink" /v /tee /ts /log:"I:\log.H
P.temp.txt"
>>
Get-Process : A positional parameter cannot be found that
accepts argument 'ROBOCOPY'.
At line:1 char:1
+ PS C:\Users\mikei> ROBOCOPY C:\Users\mikei\Documents
I:\HP.Files /MIR ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (:) [Get-Process
], ParameterBindingException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PositionalParameterNotFound,Micro
soft.PowerShell.Commands.GetProcessCommand

mikeincousa said:

What is a positional parameter?=[COLOR=#ff0000]PS C:\Users\mikei> PS C:\Users\mikei> ROBOCOPY C:\Users\mikei\Doc
uments I:\HP.Files /MIR /XD "C:\Users\mikei\Documents\FeedbackHub
" "C:\Users\mikei\Documents\Cyberlink" /v /tee /ts /log:"I:\log.H
P.temp.txt"
>>
Get-Process : A positional parameter cannot be found that
accepts argument 'ROBOCOPY'.

A positional parameter is one that can be given unnamed. So if you had a program (called program.exe) that takes parameters parm1 parm2 parm3 in that order you could call it like this

Code:

programs.exe value1 value2 value3

or

Code:

programs.exe -parm1 value1 -parm2 value2 -parm3 value3

or (if you are naming the parameters and not suppliying them in the normal order)

Code:

programs.exe -parm3 value3 -parm1 value1 -parm2 value2

The reason you are getting this error is you copied this command including the part in red :

Code:

PS C:\Users\mikei> ROBOCOPY C:\Users\mikei\Documents I:\HP.Files /MIR /XD "C:\Users\mikei\Documents\FeedbackHub" "C:\Users\mikei\Documents\Cyberlink" /v /tee /ts /log:"I:\log.HP.temp.txt"

PS is an alias for the powershell command Get-Process and all the parameters are named - it does not accept positional parameters.

To get rid of this error don't copy the PS C:\Users\mikei> - start the command with ROBOCOPY.

I notice you are not running as administrator. You should try that or make sure that your user has authority to the directories you are reading from/writing to.

If a directory does not exist on destination it will be created if using the /MIR switch (and directories on destination that do not exist on source will be deleted on the destination). The user running the robocoy command needs to have authority to read the source and update the destination (in case the directory already exists). A good start would be to run as administrator.

See Open Elevated Windows PowerShell in Windows 10 | Windows 10 Tutorials

I see your point. It was a careless error on my part.

Sorry.

Thank you for you time investment in this project and me, and your patience too.

I will start studying the Power Shell tutorial and the other article tonight. They will be helpful for the last leg of this effort. I have another cluster of files to move from the HP, and a large cluster from another drive to archive.

The skipping folder facet seems complete now so I will close this thread.

if I have any more challenges I will start a new post.

Thanks again to you and all the others here that have provided assistance and support.

Michael

robocopy can be a bit fiddly in powershell. In case you are interested, this is how I do it.

Code:

$backupDrive='E'
$backupLocation=$backupDrive+':\'+$env:computername+' Backup'

$backupDirectories = @(	
,('D:\Music','*.*')
,('C:\Users\XXXX\Documents\Calibre Library','*.*')
,('C:\Users\XXXX\OneDrive','*.*')
,('C:\Users\YYYY\OneDrive','*.*')
)

# Check if dock connected
if (Test-Path $backupLocation) {
	For($i=0;$i -lt $backupDirectories.Count; $i++) {
		$source=		$backupDirectories[$i][0]
		$files=			$backupDirectories[$i][1]
					
		if(Test-Path $source) {
			$sourceDrive=(get-item $source).PSDrive.Name
			$unqualifiedPath=split-path -noqualifier $source
			$destination="$backupLocation\$sourceDrive$unqualifiedPath"
			
			$logfile="""$backupLocation\Backup Logs\Backup $(get-date -f yyyy-MM-dd' 'HH-mm-ss-fffff) $(split-path -leaf $source).log"""
			
			# Robocopy options
			$copyOptions = @('/B','/COPYALL','/MIR')
			$selectionOptions = @()
			$retryOptions = @('/R:0','/W:0')
			$loggingOptions = @('/NFL','/NDL',"/LOG:$logfile",'/TEE')
			$jobOptions = @()
			
			$CmdLine = 	@('"{0}"' -f $source) +@('"{0}"' -f $destination) +@($files) `
						+$copyOptions +$selectionOptions +$retryOptions +$loggingOptions +$jobOptions
			& 'robocopy.exe' $CmdLine
		}			
	}			
}

read-host

Code Legibility

Yes. I am interested.

In this course of skill building I found the line-continuation marker, simple "Enter".

That helps me keep the extended code in tidier individual lines.

Your layout bring to mind coding work from long ago.

I need to learn how to layout code like you show. Batch files on the agenda.

When I pasted you code into LibreOffice the indented lines show leading spaces.

Robocopy likes jobOptions = @()
But renders tabs from LibreOffice paste as unformatted this way.
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> ^I^I^I^IjobOptions = @()
Same for a paste into NotePad.

So how do I achieve the indentations so they render like you show? Are strings of leading spaces the only way? Should I use a different editor?


Post Script to an earlier topic.
I think I moved most of my files as administrator then put down the project for a few weeks. When I picked it up for the HP transfers I forgot move up to the elevated status.

The tutorial for this was helpful. I like the Window-x chord. I think that the easiest. I have used that access path before but by using mouse clicks, which I do not find as smooth.

I would like to change the folder named "Documents" to "HP.Documents."

What would be the best course?

Totally remove the initial Robocopy /mir and start over?

If I left the first one on the destination drive and started over would I end up with duplicates under two the two respective folders: Documents; HP.Documents.

Can I safely assume that files mirrored without Administrative rights are complete (none ignored in the copying) as they would have been with them?

Yes. I can do that. The question is what happens the next time I mirror that folder?